Cancer Biopsy

There are many ways that doctors discover cancerous lesions. “Many times, it just happens to be an incidental thing when you have a scan for another purpose; people come in for abdominal or chest pain.”

Often they can determine if something is cancerous by looking at a CT, Ultrasound, or MRI, but if they are not certain, a biopsy is the next step. It’s one of the procedures that independent Interventional Radiologist Dr. Chris Johnson does frequently. “We are using the image to help guide a needle down to that area that we are concerned about, and we can take a small sample of it to be able to send off to be looked at under a microscope and determine if it is cancer or isn’t cancer. If it is cancer, we can get type and profiles on it and help guide treatment and ultimately find the best-suited path for the patient.”

The procedure itself takes less than 15 minutes. “The benefit of this image driven biopsy is it’s relatively minimally invasive and the recovery is fast. We tend to bring patients in and home the same day,” said Dr. Johnson.

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