I know that Biopsy is the standard procedure to identify the type of the tumor and also if that is malignant or not. And depending on this info the medication is determined. So far so good.
However either malignant or not, if patient wants the tumor to be removed, it will be eventually removed with an operation (assuming that it is an easy to remove one, one with low risk etc). A biopsy could still be done on the removed tumor (which is done anyway) and medication could be determined accordingly.
What is the benefit to Operator Doc of having a biopsy results before the OP? Would that change during the OP? How important is that to the operations success?
Thanks in advance.
In: Biology
Different cancers can present similarly and require different treatments and even different surgeons. It also might not even be cancer and instead a benign overgrowth.
1. Cancer or not: This often changes what surgeon does it (surgical oncologist vs general surgeon for example) and how much additional tissue needs to come out too (just the mass or do you need lymph nodes, etc…).
2. What type of cancer? Is that mass in your lung a primary lung cancer or is it a metastasis of a different cancer. If its lung cancer you are correct that part of your lung may need to be cut out, but if its a metastasis from somewhere else the answer may be that you need chemotherapy and a major surgery is of little benefit to you. Different cancers also need a different types of chemotherapy.
3. What specific sub-type of cancer. Laypeople think of things in broad categories, like “Colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer” but there are different types of each of those that require different treatments. A different surgery or chemotherapy/radiation right off the bat before any surgery.
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