The incidence of prostate cancer overall in male donors is 3.1%.¹ There are no standardised procedures for its identification.² In general, the procedure is identical to that followed by urologists to investigate men with abnormalities in prostate-specific antigen, in digital rectal examination and in transrectal ultrasound—that is, multiple prostate biopsy specimens are taken.

The biopsy specimens can be processed with a fast technique, which yields permanent sections and diagnosis in 3 h.³ The alternative is frozen-section examination, the same technique used for intraoperative consultation. The processing time with the latter depends on the number of biopsy specimens and can be as short as 30–45 min. As with the biopsy procedure in general, cancer is not always detected, even though it may be present in the unsampled prostate. Anecdotally, in a recent case presented to one of our group, cancer was not found in the frozen biopsy specimens. The prostate was then removed and sent to a northern Italian centre. Cancer was eventually seen after an extensive frozen-section examination of several tissue samples.

The complete sampling procedure with the whole-mount technique—macrosections—is a standard approach adopted in several institutions, including ours, to examine formalin-fixed radical prostatectomy specimens with clinically detected cancer.⁴

In this short report, we describe our experience on macrocryosectioning and complete sampling of the prostate from a potential multiorgan donor candidate. It is not within the scope of the report to discuss whether the man whose prostate was removed was a suitable donor candidate based on his age and clinical history.

Case presentation

Clinical history

The case described here concerns a man aged 82 years. His history included a clinical diagnosis of prostate cancer made a few years earlier for which he was put under continuous androgen ablation therapy. …