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Objectives: To investigate the relationship between prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and prostate volume in a histologically defined subset of Korean men confirmed to have benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) only from multicore biopsy of prostate., Methods: A total of 707 Korean men with a PSA level of 10 ng/mL or lower who were shown to have stromoglandular hyperplasia only from transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided multicore biopsy of prostate were included in the study. We analyzed PSA and total prostate volume (TV) measured through TRUS by stratified age cohorts. We used Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and linear regression model to describe the relationship between variables., Results: Serum PSA level significantly correlated with TV in all stratified age cohorts, with r ranging from 0.29 to 0.47 (all P <0.001). Meanwhile, the degree of correlation appeared to increase with age. The slope of linear regression showing an association of PSA and TV was 3.68. The PSA increase per unit prostate volume decreased with the advancing cohort of age when we excluded subjects 70 years or older., Conclusions: Although PSA was significantly correlated with TV, the exact nature of the relationship between PSA and TV in Korean men with biopsy-proven BPH may be different from that in other races. Further basic research on the pathophysiology of BPH is needed to explain such a racial difference.

Objectives: To investigate the association of prostate size with aggressiveness of prostate cancer in Korean men who received radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP) for clinically localized prostate cancer., Methods: We evaluated the association of RRP specimen weight and prostate volume measured by transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) with pathologic tumor grade, extraprostatic extension of disease, surgical margin status, and seminal vesicle invasion by reviewing data of 346 consecutive patients who underwent RRP for clinically localized prostate cancer at our institution without receiving preoperative radiation or hormonal treatment., Results: A strong correlation was observed between RRP specimen weight and TRUS-measured prostate volume (Spearman r = 0.76; P <0.001). After adjustment for multiple variables including age, body mass index, and preoperative prostate-specific antigen level, RRP specimen weight was observed to be significantly associated with presence of Gleason pattern 4 or greater at RRP in an inverse fashion (P = 0.03). Regarding other adverse pathologic features, prostate weight was also significantly inversely associated with extraprostatic extension of prostate cancer (P = 0.04) and surgical margin positivity (P = 0.002). When TRUS-measured prostate volume was applied in place of RRP specimen weight, results were the same., Conclusions: Our data indicate that prostate size may be a useful predictor of tumor aggressiveness in Korean men with clinically localized prostate cancer. Further efforts should be made to elucidate actual mechanisms behind the association of prostate size and/or in vivo androgenicity with aggressiveness of prostate cancer.