Brest Biopsy in clinically suspected Breast Cancer

Breast Biopsy

Needing a breast biopsy doesn’t necessarily mean one have cancer. Most biopsy results are not cancer, but a biopsy is the only way to find out for sure. During a biopsy, one has to  remove small pieces from the suspicious area so they can be looked at in the lab to see if they contain cancer cells.

Types of breast biopsies

There are different kinds of breast biopsies. Some are done using a hollow needle, and some use an incision . Each has pros and cons. The type you have depends on a number of things, like:

·         How suspicious the breast change looks

·         How big it is

·         Where it is in the breast

·         If there is more than one

·         Any other medical problems one  might have

For most suspicious areas in the breast, a needle biopsy (rather than a surgical biopsy) can be done.

Fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy

In an FNA biopsy, a very thin, hollow needle attached to a syringe is used to withdraw (aspirate) a small amount of tissue from a suspicious area. Remind my dear members that the needle used for an FNA biopsy is thinner than the one used for blood tests.

Core needle biopsy

A core biopsy uses a larger needle to sample breast changes felt by the doctor or seen on an ultrasound(usually) but occasionally defined by  mammogram, or MRI. This is often the preferred type of biopsy if breast cancer is suspected. 

Su  Srgical (open) biopsy

In rare cases, surgery is needed to remove all or part of the lump for testing. This is called a surgical or open biopsy. Most often, the surgeon removes the entire mass or abnormal area as well as a surrounding margin of normal breast tissue.

LyLmph node biopsy

Sometime there is a  need to biopsy the lymph nodes from axillae  to check them for cancer spread. This might be done at the same time as biopsy of the breast tumor, or when the breast tumor is removed at surgery. This can be done by needle biopsy, or with a sentinel lymph node biopsy and/or an axillary lymph node dissection.

Regardless of which type of biopsy one have, the biopsy samples will be sent to a lab where a a histopathologist  will look at them. It typically will take at least a few days for you to find out the results. Occasionally frozen biopsy is done as is common in clinically suspected small Ovarian Ca.