Digital Rectal Examination
Digital rectal examination (DRE) is a procedure where the examiner inserts a gloved, lubricated finger into the rectum to check the size, shape, and texture of the prostate. Areas that are irregular, hard, or lumpy need further evaluation, since they may contain cancer. Although the DRE evaluates only the back of the prostate, 85% of prostate cancers arise in this part of the prostate. Prostate cancer that can be felt on DRE is, in general, more advanced. The use of DRE has never been shown to prevent prostate cancer deaths when used as the only screening test.
Read more about this topic: Prostate Cancer Screening
Famous quotes containing the word examination:
“Whilst Marx turned the Hegelian dialectic outwards, making it an instrument with which he could interpret the facts of history and so arrive at an objective science which insists on the translation of theory into action, Kierkegaard, on the other hand, turned the same instruments inwards, for the examination of his own soul or psychology, arriving at a subjective philosophy which involved him in the deepest pessimism and despair of action.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)