What is a 'biopsy'?

What is a 'biopsy'?

Christian Cable, Dr. Ryan Osborne & Dr. Noam Z. Drazin (Cancer Experts) gives expert video advice on: What are the cancer warning signs?; How can I examine myself for cancer?; What is a 'biopsy'? and more...

A biopsy is a minor surgical procedure in which a sample or a portion of a tumor is removed from the patient and sent to the laboratory for evaluation in order to make a diagnosis, to give that growth a name. What exactly is this? That's what the purpose of a biopsy is. And it can be done several ways. You can do a biopsy with a needle. You can do a biopsy with a scalpel. There are also image-guided biopsies. So there are a multitude of ways. But at the end of the day, what you are doing is removing a small piece of tissue.