Alternative medicine (4)
- Alternative cancer treatments: 11 options to consider
- Mindfulness exercises: How to get started
- Pet therapy: Man's best friend as healer
- see all in Alternative medicine
Complications (1)
- Paraneoplastic syndromes of the nervous system
Coping and support (8)
- Cancer survivors: Care for your body after treatment
- Cancer survivors: Managing your emotions after cancer treatment
- Cancer survivors: Reconnecting with loved ones after treatment
- see all in Coping and support
Lifestyle and home remedies (2)
- Mediterranean diet recipes
- Sleep tips: 7 steps to better sleep
Prevention (1)
- Cancer prevention: 7 tips to reduce your risk
Tests and diagnosis (8)
- Cancer survival rate: What it means for your prognosis
- Biopsy: Types of biopsy procedures used to diagnose cancer
- Cancer blood tests: Lab tests used in cancer diagnosis
- see all in Tests and diagnosis
Treatments and drugs (26)
- Cancer treatment decisions: 5 steps to help you decide
- Eating during cancer treatment: Tips to make food tastier
- Low blood cell counts: Side effect of cancer treatment
- see all in Treatments and drugs
Free
E-newsletter
Subscribe to Housecall
Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date
on a wide variety of health topics.
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
continued:
Biopsy: Types of biopsy procedures used to diagnose cancer
Skin biopsy
A skin (cutaneous) biopsy removes cells from the surface of your body. A skin biopsy is used most often to diagnose skin conditions, including cancers, such as melanoma. What type of skin biopsy you undergo will depend on the type of cancer suspected and the extent of the suspicious cells. Skin biopsy procedures include:
- Shave biopsy. During a shave biopsy, the doctor uses a tool similar to a razor to scrape the surface of your skin.
- Punch biopsy. During a punch biopsy, the doctor uses a circular tool to remove a small section of your skin's deeper layers.
- Incisional biopsy. During an incisional biopsy, the doctor uses a scalpel to remove a small area of skin. Whether you receive stitches to close the biopsy site depends on the amount of skin removed.
- Excisional biopsy. During an excisional biopsy, the doctor removes an entire lump or an entire area of abnormal skin. You'll likely receive stitches to close the biopsy site.
You receive a local anesthetic to numb the biopsy site before the procedure.
Surgical biopsy
If the cells in question can't be accessed with other biopsy procedures or if other biopsy results have been inconclusive, your doctor may recommend a surgical biopsy. During a surgical biopsy, a surgeon makes an incision in your skin to access the suspicious area of cells. Examples of surgical biopsy procedures include surgery to remove a breast lump for a possible breast cancer diagnosis and surgery to remove a lymph node for a possible lymphoma diagnosis.
Surgical biopsy procedures can be used to remove part of an abnormal area of cells (incisional biopsy). Or surgical biopsy may be used to remove an entire area of abnormal cells (excisional biopsy).
You may receive local anesthetics to numb the area of the biopsy. Some surgical biopsy procedures require general anesthetics to make you unconscious during the procedure. You may also be required to stay in the hospital for observation after the procedure.
Biopsy analysis and results
After your doctor obtains a tissue sample, it's sent to a laboratory for analysis. The sample may be chemically treated or frozen and sliced into very thin sections. The sections are placed on glass slides, stained to enhance contrast, and studied under a microscope.
The results help your doctor determine whether the cells are cancerous. If the cells are cancerous, the biopsy results can tell your doctor where the cancer originated — the type of cancer.
A biopsy also helps your doctor determine how aggressive your cancer is — the cancer's grade. The grade is sometimes expressed as a number on a scale of 1 to 4, and is determined by how cancer cells look under the microscope. Grade 1, or low-grade, cancers are generally the least aggressive and grade 4, or high-grade, cancers, generally the most aggressive. This information may help guide treatment options. Other special tests on the cancer cells also can help to guide treatment choices.
In certain cases, such as during surgery, a pathologist examines the sample of cells immediately and results are available to your surgeon within minutes. But in most cases, the results of your biopsy are available in one or two days. Some samples may need more time to be analyzed. Ask your doctor how long to expect to wait for your biopsy results.
Previous page(2 of 2)
- Biopsy — What to expect. Cancer.Net. http://www.cancer.net/patient/All+About+Cancer/Cancer.Net+Feature+Articles/Cancer+Screening+and+Prevention/Biopsy%26mdash%3BWhat+to+Expect. Accessed Jan. 14, 2011.
- How are basal and squamous cell skin cancers diagnosed? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/SkinCancer-BasalandSquamousCell/DetailedGuide/skin-cancer-basal-and-squamous-cell-diagnosis. Accessed Jan. 14, 2011.
- Pathology reports. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Detection/pathology-reports. Accessed Jan. 14, 2011.
- Tumor grade: Questions and answers. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Detection/tumor-grade. Accessed Jan. 14, 2011.
Find Mayo Clinic on