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Although your doctor may use several tests to learn more about your illness, a biopsy of some sort may be needed, to find out for sure whether you have cancer.
The doctor takes a sample of cells or tissue from the suspected cancer. The sample then goes to a laboratory to be looked at under a microscope.
The doctor may take the sample from a lump that you have - but this isn’t always the case, because people with cancer don’t always have lumps. For instance, the doctor may take a sample of bone marrow if s/he thinks you have a disease such as myeloma.
In the laboratory a specialist doctor (a pathologist) looks at the sample to see whether there is any cancer there. Biopsies may also be used to find out whether the cancer has spread, or how fast-growing (aggressive) it may be.
The study of samples taken from lumps of tissue is called histology.
The study of cells smeared onto a slide is called cytology.
There are different ways of getting the biopsy sample...
- the doctor may remove a whole lump or part of a lump (this is an excision biopsy). Slices of the suspected cancer can then be looked at under the microscope
- cells may be sucked up through a thin needle into a syringe – for example, from a lymph node or the bone marrow. This is called fine needle aspiration biopsy. The cells are smeared onto a glass slide, ready for the microscope
- a fine core of tissue (rather than just some cells) may be taken up through a needle. This is a core biospy
- some cells may be scraped off the body tissue and put onto a slide (eg from a wart on the skin, or from the inside of the uterus or womb)
- the doctor may take small tissue samples through a special instrument put into a body opening. For example, lung samples can be taken by putting a bronchoscope through the nose or mouth and down into lungs; bowel samples can be taken through a colonoscope.
- Fine needle aspiration (FNA) - breast
- Lung biopsy
For some biopsy tests the doctor uses an x-ray or an ultrasound scan to find out exactly where to take the sample from.
More information about biopsies...
Our main tests menu also lists other tests where biopsies may be taken (such as bronchoscopy, ERCP, endoscopy).
