To Biopsy or Not? 💉

Many cases have been reported in the medical literature on "seeding," which is the spreading of cancer cells after biopsy or surgery. A search in any medical database can pull up many reports of such:

- A case of melanoma seeding along the biopsy tract

- Tumour seeding along needle biopsy tract in pancreatic cancer - Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma Seeding along a Percutaneous Biopsy Tract

- Neoplastic seeding of breast cancer along the core biopsy tract

- Are Biopsy Tracts a Concern for Seeding and Local Recurrence in Sarcomas?

- Seeding of osteosarcoma in the biopsy tract of a patient with multifocal osteosarcoma

- Implantation Metastasis along the Stereotactic Biopsy Tract in Anaplastic Astrocytoma: A Case Report

- Implantation metastasis of malignant fibrous histiocytoma along the stereotactic biopsy tra

- Metastatic seeding of glioblastoma along image-guided biopsy tract with successful treatment with re-irradiation: A case report

- Tumor seeding along the needle track after percutaneous lung biopsy

- Limiting tumor seeding as a therapeutic approach for metastatic disease

- Serious tumor seeding after brainstem biopsy and its treatment-a case report and review of the literature

However! Spontaneous remission from cancer has also been reported in many cases following biopsy or partial removal of a tumor:

Effects of biopsy-induced wound healing on residual basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas: rate of tumor regression in excisional specimens

In our series, 24% of NMSCs transected on the initial biopsy showed no residual tumor in the excision specimens, implying that some event in the interval between biopsy and excision may lead to the eradication of residual tumor. The exact mechanism is unclear, but wound healing likely plays an important role.

Search: "spontaneous biopsy remission" on PubMed:

- Spontaneous remission of untreated primary amyloidosis of the bladder after transurethral resection biopsy: a case report and literature review

- Spontaneous remission in diffuse large cell lymphoma: a case report

- Spontaneous regression of primary renal cell carcinoma following image-guided percutaneous biopsy

- Spontaneous regression of two giant basal cell carcinomas in a single patient after incomplete excision

- Spontaneous regression of a primary squamous cell lung cancer following biopsy: a case report

- Spontaneous regression of non-small cell lung cancer after biopsy of a mediastinal lymph node metastasis: a case report

- Spontaneous regression of canine papillomavirus type 2-related papillomatosis on footpads in a dog

(Not cancer, and in dogs, but very interesting nonetheless!)

"Two weeks after a biopsy, the skin lesion spontaneously regressed without any specific treatment. In non-immunocompromised dogs, CPV-2-related footpad papillomatosis could spontaneously resolve after a biopsy."

- Case Report of Spontaneous Resolution of a Congenital Glioblastoma

"We describe the first known report of spontaneous resolution of a congenital GBM without any systemic therapy. A limited debulking procedure was performed at diagnosis, and the residual tumor underwent spontaneous resolution over the following 21 months. The patient remains in remission, with no tumor recurrence after 5 years of follow-up."

- A case of CD4 +/CD8 + double-positive primary cutaneous anaplastic large cell lymphoma of the lip involving spontaneous regression after biopsy

So when you're faced with a decision to biopsy or not, consider first the state of your immune system.

Why do cancer cells behave in this way?

There is interesting research on the metabolism of cancer cells that are metastasizing are actually changing their metabolism: The metabolism of cancer cells during metastasis