Lets say someone goes to the doctor: The doctor sees tumors in the lungs and in the liver. Why does the doctor know that its liver cancer that spread to the lungs and not lung cancer that spread to the liver?
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They would have to biopsy both locations because 1)a person can have multiple cancers at the same time and 2)the body can sometimes have misplaced organ tissue in seemingly random locations.
I discovered this when my best friend was finally diagnosed. He became partially paralyzed when one of his vertebrae basically crumbled. When they did a CT scan they found he was riddled with cancer. The cancer that had eaten through his spine was actually *germ-cell cancer* aka testicular cancer… even though there was no cancer in his actual testes. They removed what they could when they stabilized his spine.
The cancer in his colon was extensive so they biopsied that and it actually was colon cancer, but that introduced the question of whether the remaining lesions were germ-cell, colon, or perhaps yet another type of cancer.
It was important to find out because the treatments are *very* different. Colon cancer grows quite slowly, but is extremely difficult to treat. Conversely, germ-cell cancer is very treatable, but grows like a wild fire.
Due to what I (and the oncologist) felt were unconscionable delays in the lab, the germ-cell cancer (which should have been easily eradicated) proliferated like a nuclear reaction and killed him before we found the answer to that question.
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