European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer Risk Calculator: External Validation, Variability, and Clinical Significance

Objective: To externally validate the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) risk calculator (RC) and to evaluate its variability between 2 consecutive prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values.

Materials and methods: We prospectively catalogued 1021 consecutive patients before prostate biopsy for suspicion of prostate cancer (PCa). The risk of PCa and significant PCa (Gleason score ≥7) from 749 patients was calculated according to ERSPC-RC (digital rectal examination-based version 3 of 4) for 2 consecutive PSA tests per patient. The calculators' predictions were analyzed using calibration plots and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (area under the curve). Cohen kappa coefficient was used to compare the ability and variability.

Results: Of 749 patients, PCa was detected in 251 (33.5%) and significant PCa was detected in 133 (17.8%). Calibration plots showed an acceptable parallelism and similar discrimination ability for both PSA levels with an area under the curve of 0.69 for PCa and 0.74 for significant PCa. The ERSPC showed 226 (30.2%) unnecessary biopsies with the loss of 10 significant PCa. The variability of the RC was 16% for PCa and 20% for significant PCa, and a higher variability was associated with a reduced risk of significant PCa.

Conclusion: We can conclude that the performance of the ERSPC-RC in the present cohort shows a high similitude between the 2 PSA levels; however, the RC variability value is associated with a decreased risk of significant PCa. The use of the ERSPC in our cohort detects a high number of unnecessary biopsies. Thus, the incorporation of ERSPC-RC could help the clinical decision to carry out a prostate biopsy.