Tripawds Three Legged Dog & Cat Forum Archives

Thank you Erica, everyone going through a cancer diagnosis needs to read it. This is GREAT info, especially her answer to:

2. Will performing an aspirate/biopsy cause the cancer to spread/become more aggressive?

Though tumor cells can disseminate into the bloodstream during surgical manipulation, the ability of these cells to actually arrest within a distant anatomical site and grow into new tumors is poor, and fortunately, most circulating tumor cells are rapidly destroyed by the host’s immune system.  Pretreatment biopsies are typically recommended in order to obtain a diagnosis prior to making more definitive treatment recommendations.   Exceptions would include cases where the biopsy procedure is associated with a high degree of morbidity (e.g. biopsy of the brain/spinal cord) or when knowing the tumor type would not change the choice of therapy (e.g. biopsy of a splenic mass or primary lung tumor.)