Diagnosing skin cancer early — and accurately — is the key to treating it most effectively, and perhaps the most important tool for getting the accurate diagnosis is a biopsy technique called a punch biopsy.
Biopsy
“I also appreciated that all of my appointments were at the same facility and that the doctors worked as a group to discuss the results of my various tests."
Biopsies are fundamental to diagnosing cancer and monitoring results of its treatment. Patients awaiting the outcome of a cancer biopsy face having an enormous weight being put on – or lifted from – their shoulders.
Whether it’s a lump or a mass where there shouldn’t be, a shadow on an X-ray or scan, or an unusual-looking mole, polyp or lesion, any suspicion of cancer is unsettling.
Surgical advances, such as video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS), have replaced the Chamberlain procedure and offer the surgeon a better way to examine the lungs, determine the extent of the disease and get higher-quality biopsies.
Research and patient advocacy revolutionized breast cancer care in the 1970s, giving women a greater voice in their treatment.