With the picture of your prostate on video, your doctor inserts a thin, spring-loaded, hollow needle through the wall of your rectum into your prostate gland. As your doctor removes the needle, he takes out a tiny bit of prostate tissue.
Because prostate cancer is rarely in only one area of the prostate, your doctor will take an average of 12 tissue samples from different parts of your prostate. He may take more samples of tissue if necessary.
It's possible to have different types of cancer in the same prostate. Your doctor will get each tissue sample checked by a lab. The lab report will tell your doctor if cancer is present in each sample, how much of the tissue sample contains cancer, and your Gleason score.