On average, roughly one in every 200 patients undergoing a prostate biopsy are misdiagnosed due to their biopsy specimens being switched with or contaminated by those of another patient, according to a recent study conducted by Strand Diagnostics.
To explore the economic and patient safety consequences of errors with specimens, researchers performed a systematic review of previously published studies on the frequency of error rates, various treatment modalities and costs.
They found that out of roughly 806,000 prostate biopsy procedures performed annually in the United States, 20,300 involved a specimen switch or contamination and nearly 4,600 patients were estimated to have received a false-positive or false-negative diagnosis based on the wrong specimen.
All total, the misdiagnoses result in approximately $880 million in unnecessary healthcare expenditures each year, according to the study.
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