In most cases, doctors need to do a biopsy to diagnose cancer. A biopsy is a procedure in which the doctor removes a sample of tissue. A pathologist looks at the tissue under a microscope and runs other tests to see if the tissue is cancer.
You can find certain types of cancer without a biopsy. There are a few different ways to do this, depending on the type of cancer you have and how much it has grown. You may have certain symptoms: You could have a bad cough if you have lung cancer or pee blood if you have bladder cancer.
A biopsy is only recommended if there's a suspicious finding on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or a concerning clinical finding. If a scan is normal and there are no worrisome symptoms, there's no need for a biopsy.
If imaging exams cannot clearly define the abnormality, a biopsy may be necessary. Usually, a biopsy is performed to examine tissue for disease. Biopsies are frequently used to diagnose cancer, but they can help identify other conditions such as infections and inflammatory and autoimmune disorders.
Imaging tests, such as CT scans or MRIs, are helpful in detecting masses or irregular tissue, but they alone can't tell the difference between cancerous cells and cells that aren't cancerous. For most cancers, the only way to make a diagnosis is to perform a biopsy to collect cells for closer examination.
While a biopsy may sound scary, it's important to remember that most are entirely pain-free and low-risk procedures. Depending on your situation, a piece of skin, tissue, organ, or suspected tumor will be surgically removed and sent to a lab for testing.
Biopsies are most often done to either confirm or rule out a suspicion of cancer. However, biopsies are also performed to diagnosis other causes of your symptoms including: Inflammatory disorders, such as in the kidney (nephritis) or the liver (hepatitis). Infections, such as tuberculosis.
Once the sample is collected, it is sent to the lab for analysis to determine if the cells are cancerous. Generally, it takes about two working days to receive results, but it sometimes takes longer if additional testing is needed.
A CT scan can show whether you have a tumor—and, if you do, where it's located and how big it is. CT scans can also show the blood vessels that are feeding the tumor. Your care team may use these images to see whether the cancer has spread to other parts of your body, such as the lungs or liver.
Not all tumors require surgery
Doctors treat some tumors with chemotherapy and/or radiation instead of removing it with a surgery. Most tumors that require surgery are either solid organ tumors or soft tissue tumors.
Aside from leukemia, most cancers cannot be detected in routine blood work, such as a CBC test. However, specific blood tests are designed to identify tumor markers, which are chemicals and proteins that may be found in the blood in higher quantities than normal when cancer is present.
Recovery. Most biopsies will only require local anaesthetic, which means you won't need to stay in hospital overnight. However, an overnight stay is sometimes required when the biopsy is carried out under general anaesthetic.
Lumps that could be cancer might be found by imaging tests or felt as lumps during a physical exam, but they still must be sampled and looked at under a microscope to find out what they really are. Not all lumps are cancer. In fact, most tumors are not cancer.
Fine-needle, core-needle, and surgical biopsies are the three types of biopsies. Thankfully, when looking into what percentage of breast biopsies are cancer? The answer is low—only 20%.
Your doctor may recommend a biopsy after seeing or feeling a suspicious lump, mass, or other area on or inside your body. A careful examination of the tissue or individual cells in the sample is necessary to know for sure if disease is present and, if so, the specific type of disease.
An office-based procedure is a minor surgery, such as a biopsy, that is done an office setting on an outpatient basis, usually with some level of anesthesia.
After your biopsy
You might be able to go back to normal activities as soon as the test is over. Or you may need to rest at home for some time or stay in the hospital to begin your recovery. If your anesthesia includes a sedative, you need someone to drive you home afterwards.
Generally, after a patient receives positive melanoma results, his or her doctors will need to proceed with staging the malignancy— which essentially means determining the extent of the cancer—and developing a treatment plan based on how far the cancer has progressed.
The most common types include: (1) incisional biopsy, in which only a sample of tissue is removed; (2) excisional biopsy, in which an entire lump or suspicious area is removed; and (3) needle biopsy, in which a sample of tissue or fluid is removed with a needle.
Some biopsies can be done in a healthcare provider's office, while others need to be done in a hospital setting. In addition, some biopsies can be done with a local anesthetic to numb just the local area involved. Others may need sedation or even full anesthesia that puts you completely asleep during the procedure.
“The chance that surgery will cause cancer to spread to other parts of the body is extremely low. Following standard procedures, surgeons use special methods and take many steps to prevent cancer cells from spreading during biopsies or surgery to remove tumors.
If a normal or negative test result comes back, the physician can telephone the patient with the “good news,” and patients have the option of canceling the follow-up appointment. Although it is preferable to give bad news face-to-face, there may be times when giving bad news over the phone is unavoidable.