[Sonography of the prostate : Relevance for urologists in daily clinical routine]

Despite the continuous technical progress regarding the transrectal ultrasonography of the prostate (TRUS) and its successful use in combination with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in MRI-targeted biopsy, there is no radiologic modality being able to rule out clinically significant prostate cancer without the need of systematic biopsy. In the past few years, TRUS regained more attention due to the development of high frequency ultrasound as well as the combination of different ultrasonic modalities like shear wave elastography and contrast-enhanced sonography (CEUS). Currently, multiparametric MRI (mpMRI)-targeted biopsy shows the best results concerning detection rates, sensitivity and specificity of clinically significant prostate cancer compared to systematic biopsy. In the future, transperineal biopsy is probably going to increasingly replace the transrectal biopsy approach. For both approaches, transrectal ultrasonography is necessary to display the prostate and to detect suspicious lesions. Therefore future improvements in transrectal ultrasonography can be expected.