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Published on: July 25, 2015
Use of Core-Needle Biopsy for the Diagnosis of Malignant Lymphomas in Clinical Practice
Yuta Ito1, Akiko Miyagi Maeshima2, Shunsuke Hatta3
1Department of Hematology, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, yutito@ncc.go.jp.
Introduction:
Excisional biopsy (EB) is considered the gold standard for lymphoma diagnosis. Although recent advances in interventional radiology enable sampling with core-needle biopsy (CNB), only few studies evaluated the utility of CNB compared to that of EB.
Methods:
We analyzed patients with lymphoma who had a diagnostic biopsy at the National Cancer Center Hospital during 2002-2017. We investigated the clinical and pathological characteristics of CNB in 2017.
Results:
The proportion of CNB utility in total biopsy procedures had increased from 11 to 48% during the 15 years. In 2017, CNB was opted more frequently than EB for a biopsy of superficial, abdominal, or anterior mediastinal lesions. Only one out of 72 patients who had CNB required re-biopsy with EB because of insufficiency. The incidence of complications was comparable between CNB and EB: 2 (4%) cases of minor bleeding with CNB and 1 (8%) case of minor bleeding with EB. The median time from the first visit to biopsy was significantly shorter with CNB (5.5 days) than with EB (15 days).
Conclusion:
There is an increasing trend in the utility of CNB. CNB is a less invasive method with shorter time to biopsy and can be considered an alternative to EB.
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