DOI: 10.21276/sasjs.2017.3.10.2

Pages: 271-276

Prostate biopsy is the gold standard for tissue diagnosis of prostate cancer. A significant proportion of men undergoing transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided prostate biopsy report pain during the procedure thereby underscoring the need for some pain relief. The aims of this study were to determine the effect of intrarectal lidocaine gel in improving pain relief during ultrasound-guided transrectal biopsy. This was a prospective study of 108 patients scheduled for transrectal prostate biopsy in our hospital over a 16 month period. Patients were randomly assigned to receive 100mg of oral tramadol and 20ml of intrarectal 2% lidocaine gel 10 minutes before the procedure (lidocaine group ) or 100mg of oral tramadol and 20ml of intrarectal KY jelly(placebo) 10 minutes before the procedure (placebo group). Pain severity was assessed at 2 minutes after both phases of the procedure using the numerical rating score (NRS). The mean pain scores for the lidocaine and placebo groups during ultrasound probe insertion where 3.4±2.1 and 4.1±1.8 respectively. The mean pain scores for both groups during biopsy needle insertion were 5.2 ± 2.0 and 6.4 ± 1.9 for the lidocaine and placebo groups respectively. The differences in mean pain scores during ultrasound probe insertion as well as during biopsy needle insertion were statistically significant (P = 0.036 and 0.002 respectively).