Chemotherapy is often the first-line treatment for many cancers. It is considered a systemic therapy because chemo drugs travel along with the blood throughout the body and kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy can be used in two ways for treating cancer, either as curative or palliative. Curative chemotherapy destroys cancer cells and prevents recurrence. Palliative chemotherapy helps to relieve a patient from cancer symptoms and to increase their quality of life while prolonging their life span to some extent.

Biopsies are performed under local or general anaesthesia, so the biopsy procedure won’t be painful. But it causes pain as a side effect at the site of the biopsy procedure that can be relieved by using pain relievers. There are also risks of bleeding and infections at the site of the procedure. Your doctor will prescribe you the necessary medications to manage the side effects of the biopsy procedure.

Although imaging tests like CT, MRI, etc are enough to diagnose cancer or abnormal growths, these cannot differentiate between cancerous cells and non-cancerous cells, and how severe the cancer is. So, it’s always best to get a biopsy done for an accurate diagnosis of cancer. Your doctor will assess you to know if you are the right candidate for a biopsy.

Biopsies may not always yield 100% accurate results. Almost in 80% of cases, biopsies gave accurate results and helped cancer patients get the most suitable treatments. Rarely around 1 to 2% of biopsies result in bringing incorrect results. We call it a false positive or false negative. However, a biopsy is the best way to a confirmed diagnosis of cancer.

The biopsy is recommended to know the cancer type and stage. It also helps doctors to diagnose cancer accurately. So that, they can prescribe the best suitable treatment that is tailored according to the characteristics of your cancer. It is done to either confirm or rule out the cancer suspicion.

The biopsy is required to determine if the abnormal growths are cancerous or not. Biopsy yields almost 90% accurate results. This helps your doctor to know what kind of cancer you have and how severe it is. Considering these biopsy test results, your doctor will give you the personalised cancer treatment that suits you well.

There are different types of biopsies including a needle biopsy, skin biopsy (also called shave biopsy or punch biopsy), endoscopic biopsy, laparoscopic biopsy, bone marrow biopsy or bone marrow aspiration, surgical biopsy or excisional biopsy, liquid biopsy and image-guided biopsy.

If your biopsy results show positive for cancer diagnosis, your doctor will determine the stage and severity of your cancer. This gives information on how far cancer has spread and how aggressively it is growing. Based on this analysis, your doctor will develop a personalised treatment plan that works effectively for your cancer.

Depending on the type of biopsy procedure and the type of organ to be biopsied, the duration of a biopsy will be around 15 to 30 minutes. The collected tissue sample is sent to a laboratory for testing of cancer and it will take 3 to 4 days to get the biopsy results.

For most biopsies, you can leave the hospital on the same day if you are alright. But how soon, depends on your situation and what part has been biopsied. Your doctor will monitor your condition after a biopsy and discharge you accordingly.

After the biopsy, the collected sample is sent to a laboratory for cancer analysis. You can expect the biopsy results within two days to one week. Sometimes, a pathologist or a histologist needs to further verify the cancer cells. This requires additional testing of the sample and it takes around 10 days to get the results.

Onco Cancer Centres enables you to avail of diagnostic tests, including a biopsy test at a discount of up to 15%. If you opt for our subscription plan, Onco Care Plus, you can get diagnostic tests at a 35% discount.