HWN Suggests

Could a simple blood test replace the invasive tissue biopsy?

The appeal of a simple blood test to detect and analyze cancer is obvious. It could replace the necessary evil of tissue biopsies — invasive, often risky and painful procedures to collect tumor cells with a needle or through surgery. A vial of blood sounds like a better trade than a chunk of tissue.

Recently, the idea of these so-called “liquid biopsies” seems less like a fantasy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its first liquid biopsy test in 2016. It could detect mutations in a single gene in lung cancer patients.

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Articles of Interest

Types of Biopsies

Biopsies are usually performed to determine whether tissue or a tumor is malignant (cancerous) or to determine the cause of an unexplained infection or inflammation.

A Blood Test Hits the Market That Could Replace the Biopsy -- And Just Might Save Lives

It has long been known that blood carries genetic material from the dying cells of tumors, but the fragments are in such low concentrations that it has been difficult to reliably read the information. It’s akin to a low resolution photograph: As you zoom in, the details become a meaningless blur. But Guardant has developed a new way of preparing samples — through a proprietary process they declined to share — that allows them to effectively capture higher-resolution snapshots of the tumor fragments when they sequence the genome. The company says it improves detection sensitivity by “well over 100-fold.”

Biopsy: 5 Things Every Patient Should Know

Some biopsies can be performed in a doctor’s office or an outpatient clinic. These include shave biopsies, punch biopsies, Pap tests and cervical biopsies, and even some fine needle aspiration biopsies (FNABs) for the thyroid or lymph nodes.

Doctors Debate Criteria For Prostate Biopsy

PSA velocity emerged over the past decade as a strategy to cut down on unnecessary biopsies that are an inevitable problem when a biopsy is ordered on the basis of a given PSA threshold.

Every Single Thing That Happened During My Cervical Biopsy

But what does a cervical biopsy feel like? Legit painful or NBD? While I can’t speak for all cervixes, here’s what happened during mine, in painstaking detail.

General Biopsy

A biopsy is the removal of tissue from any part of the body to examine it for disease. Some may remove a small tissue sample with a needle while others may surgically remove a suspicious nodule or lump. Most needle biopsies are performed on an outpatient basis with minimal preparation.

How liquid biopsies have made it easier to treat cancer

The tests detect traces of disease in a patient’s blood. Here’s how they’re used—and why scientists hope they’re the future of cancer screening.

How Much Can Women Trust That Breast Cancer Biopsy?

When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, the person who does the diagnosing is a doctor she never sees — the pathologist. But though pathologists do a great job of identifying invasive cancer, they aren't as good at spotting two less clear-cut diagnoses that bring women a lot of uncertainty and worry, a study finds.

More Women Opt For Less Invasive Breast Biopsies

Lee notes that the needle biopsy doesn't require general anesthesia or stitches. And it doesn't cause scarring or risk complications associated with all surgery, including infection and bleeding.

Painless cancer detection could become routine thanks to 'liquid biopsies'

Biopsies are seen as the best way of detecting the illness – but they have traditionally often required invasive techniques.

Sidestepping the Biopsy With New Tools to Spot Cancer

While the usefulness of the tests still needs to be proved, proponents say that because liquid biopsies are not invasive, they can be easier to repeat periodically, potentially tracking the disease as it evolves and allowing treatments to be adjusted accordingly.

So You Need a Cervical Biopsy—Here's What That Actually Means

A colposcopy is less terrifying than it sounds.

The Trauma of My Cervical Biopsy

I walked into my gyno's office feeling totally unprepared for what I was about to endure. Here's what you need to know about the procedure.

Watch These Star-Shaped Micro-Robots Perform Mini Biopsies

Colon biopsies are uncomfortable procedures, but doctors need to do them if they suspect that a patient may have colon cancer, the third most commonly diagnosed type of cancer in the U.S. Now researchers have developed star-shaped robots that can take tissue samples from inside the colon without the invasive probe.

What is a biopsy?

Biopsies can be used to investigate the cause of a person’s symptoms or to help diagnose a number of different health conditions. Where a condition has already been diagnosed, a biopsy can be used to measure how severe it is or at what stage it is. For example, the results of a biopsy can show how severely an organ, such as the liver, is inflamed.

With Advances in Biopsies, Less Can Mean More

Biopsies of almost every organ have changed significantly. Many are now minimally invasive, and the tissue extracted is becoming smaller and smaller.