Photo Credit: Shidlovski

The following is a summary of “A brief mind-body intervention to reduce pain and anxiety during prostate needle biopsy: a clinically integrated randomized controlled trial with 2-staged consent,” published in the December 2023  issue of Urology by Gaffney, et al.

People who have a prostate biopsy feel pain, worry, and discomfort, which could make them not want to join active monitoring programs or have a follow-up test. Guided meditation can make the pain and stress of a needle biopsy a lot better.

For a study, researchers sought to see how well a short mind-body intervention affected what patients said happened after a prostate biopsy.

They did a clinically-integrated randomized controlled study at a single tertiary care center from 2018 to 2022 to see how a short mind-body intervention during biopsy would compare to standard care. Patients who could get a transrectal ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy in the office with local anesthesia could join. This clinically integrated study happened simultaneously as a randomized controlled trial with permission in 1 and 2 stages. On a visual-analog measure (0–10), patients were asked to rate their pain, worry, difficulty, and ability to handle it. A 15% gain was already thought to be therapeutically important. They used Fisher’s exact test to see how many men in each group reported a serious score (7–10) on any of the 4 scales. They then used ANCOVA to see how the means for each scale compared when the randomization group was first biopsy vs. prior biopsy.

Of the 263 qualified patients, 238 signed up, with 119 in each group. Seventy-two people (72%) signed up with two-stage permission. About 37/94 (39%) of patients randomized to standard care and 38/102 (37%) patients randomized to intervention had severe scores in any of the 4 areas. This is a difference of 2.1% (95% CI: -13 to 17%, P = 0.8). There was no change in the mean scores for worry (P = 0.3), discomfort (P = 0.09), pain (P = 0.4), or tolerance (P = 0.2) after the autopsy. It’s not likely that this short mind-body interaction during a prostate biopsy will have a clinically meaningful effect. Two-stage permission makes it possible to engage a lot of patients.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1078143923003290