When the doctor says: Take a puncture biopsy, what does it mean?

Not long ago, during the physical examination, 50-year-old Aunt Wu was found to have thyroid nodules, and the doctor recommended that she undergo a thyroid biopsy to determine whether the nodules were benign or malignant.

To this end, Aunt Wu specifically checked the relevant information on the Internet, some people oppose puncture biopsy, because if the nodule is malignant, the puncture may cause cancer metastasis, and some people say that puncture is traumatic, and there are complications like surgery...

In addition to thyroid nodules, many people have found some symptoms on the breast, lymph, and lungs after the physical examination, and doctors will ask for a "puncture biopsy" in order to further confirm.

Does "puncture biopsy" hurt? What kind of inspection is it? Is it risky?

01

Puncture biopsy, does it hurt?

When it comes to the "puncture biopsy" test, many people say that "we are not familiar with it", and even just from the literal beginning of fear.

In fact, there is no need to make up for the scene of "needle pricking" in film and television works.

Before the puncture, the anesthetic drug will be applied locally, so there is no pain during the puncture, but there is a little feeling of injection when injecting the anesthetic drug, and after the puncture is completed, that is, after the anesthetic drug fails, there will be some pain, but this pain is tolerable, not intolerable. So the pain of the puncture biopsy is not serious, don't worry, it's not that bad.

Like the fine needle biopsy for thyroid disease, the needle used to take the material is very thin, and the pain of puncturing the skin is relatively low, and the pain is basically not felt. No anesthetics or hospitalization are required even during the procedure, and many countries now use it as a routine examination for thyroid nodules.

02

What is a "puncture biopsy"?

Puncture biopsy is a kind of biopsy, biopsy is also called pathological examination, is one of the commonly used examination methods in medicine, can provide the most reliable scientific basis for diagnosis.

But doctors often say that pathology is the golden standard of diagnosis, that a mule is a horse, and it always has to be pulled out and walked to know.

Let's take the mooncake as a simple analogy:

A moon cake look at the outside and do not know what kind of filling it is, if you use a toothpick to pierce into the mooncake, after pulling out the toothpick to see that there is no egg yolk crumbs on the toothpick, you can judge that the moon cake is not egg yolk filling, as to whether it is a lotus egg yolk or a five-kernel egg yolk is not clear. So use the chopsticks with grooves in the front section to insert into the moon cake and pull it out, and the groove will bring out a very small amount of moon cake filling, you can know whether the moon cake has egg yolks, and you can know whether there is lotus paste or five kernels.

If you put this chopstick into a straw, the straw is connected to the negative pressure, so that the resulting small amount of mooncake filling is sucked out again and again through the straw, so that you can insert a straw to suck out the mooncake filling multiple times, and get more mooncake filling to confirm what kind of filling the mooncake is.

In puncture biopsy, a fine needle puncture is like a toothpick, which can only penetrate the cells of the mass, and judge the good and bad of the tumor according to the cells. Needle puncture is like chopsticks with grooves, which can obtain a very small amount of tumor tissue, and multiple punctures obtain enough specimens. The vacuum-assisted spin-cut biopsy system is like chopsticks with a straw, entering a sufficient amount of tumor tissue at a time for pathological examination.

03

What are the benefits of a "puncture biopsy"?

As a means of examination, biopsy has the following major advantages:

1. Direct and reliable.

Biopsy is a direct smear of the diseased tissue, directly observed under the microscope, and obviously, the diagnosis obtained in this way is the most direct, reliable and accurate.

2. The scope of biopsy includes almost all organs in the body.

With the advancement of biopsy equipment and the maturity of imaging technology, almost all lesions can be diagnosed by biopsy.

3. Safe and accurate.

Under the guidance of CT, B ultrasound, nuclear magnetic resonance (MRI), etc., doctors can now send biopsy needles into the lesion very accurately, remove live tissue as needed, will not damage other tissues and organs, rarely cause complications, patients have almost no pain, and can be repeatedly applied many times.

4. Save time and money.

If a lesion is found, a biopsy is done, which is fast and saves money. In summary, biopsy is a diagnostic technique that no other test can replace.

04

Will a puncture biopsy cause the tumor to spread?

Hard!

Before the 1980s, coarse needle puncture was mainly used, which was traumatic and indeed reported in a very small number of cases of metastasis due to puncture;

After the 1980s, the use of fine needle puncture was much less invasive, and there were no reports of cancer cell metastasis due to puncture.

So, just relax!

Whether it is a toothpick or a chopstick, the damage to the mooncake is very small, the bleeding during the puncture process is also very small, and the chance of tumor tissue entering the blood is minimal. Secondly, the partial puncture uses tools such as "chopsticks with a straw", so the tissue taken in and out of the "mooncake" is inside the "straw" and will not run outside the "straw" at all.

Moreover, a single tumor cell must adapt to the new environment to survive, and it is even more necessary to defeat the autoimmune cells in the new environment to survive, and the tumor cell remnants of the long journey are easily surrounded and destroyed by the autoimmune army. After the puncture, the results of the pathological examination can be known 3 to 7 days, and the targeted treatment of the tumor is carried out immediately, and the tumor has been killed before it can metastasize or be planted.

Easy to spread, metastasis, recurrence, is the characteristics of cancer, do not do biopsy, cancer cells will still spread. So it's not right to be reluctant to do a biopsy just because you're worried that a biopsy will spread cancer cells.

Puncture biopsy is not a new thing, with the development of science, the application is becoming more and more extensive, many patients through biopsy to find the disease, early and correct treatment, to obtain the best treatment effect.

If one day, the doctor says to you: take a puncture biopsy, please actively follow the doctor's advice, do it, don't hesitate.

bibliography

LIU Qinglin. Ultrasound intervention, let the puncture biopsy "long eyes"[J]. Health for All, 2019 (Issue 11).

Lü Liqiong. Breast cancer spread should not let biopsy "back the pot"[J]. Household Medicine, 2018 (Phase 3).

Xu Naijia. Are you entangled with thyroid aspiration biopsy[J]. Family Top&Healthy One Point, 2016 (Issue 7).

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