Soft tissue lesions and biopsy Flashcards
What is a biopsy ?
- Sample of tissue for histopathological analysis
- Allows us to confirm or establish a diagnosis
- Determine prognosis
What questions should you ask when thinking about a biopsy?
- Should I biopsy this?
- Why am I biopsying this?
- What question am I asking the pathologist?
What type of biopsy is a blood sample?
- Aspiration biopsy
- e.g. FBC, U&E, haematinics, glucose etc
What types of biopsy can be taken from aspiration?
- Blood sample
- Lesion e.g. abscess or cystic lesion
- Solid lesion e.g. salivary gland lesion
Why is aspiration useful in biopsy for a abscess for example?
- Avoids contamination by oral commensals
- Protection of anaerobic species
- Determines whether a lesion is solid or fluid filled
What type of lesion may yield blood, that isn’t a blood sample?
- Haemangioma
What is a cystic lesion that can be aspirated?
- Keratocytes -aspirate keratin
- Radicular cyst
- Dentigerous cyst
What is a fine needle aspiration biopsy?
- Aspiration of cells from solid lesion
- Goes to cytology not histology
- Not done commonly in dental hospital
- But can be done for enck swelling, salivary gland lesions
What is an excisional biopsy and what would you do this for?
- Removal of all clinically abnormal tissues
- Have to be fairly confident of provisional diagnosis to excise all teh tissue
- Done for Benign lesions e.g. fibrous overgrowths, denture hyperplasia, mucoceles
- Done only if it is a discrete lesion (in one place, not all over the mouth)
What is an incisional biopsy and when would you do this?
- Representative tissue sample
- Usually done for larger lesions or uncertain diagnosis
- e.g. leukoplakia , lichen planus, squamous cell carcinoma
What is a punch biopsy? Describe the instrument and what is does
- Type of incisional biopsy
- Hollow trephine 4, 6 or 8mm diameter
- Removes core of tissue with minimal damage
- May not require suture or only minimal number of sutures
What questions do you need to answer when selecting the area to biopsy?
- Must be large enough
- Must be representative
- Maybe more than one biopsy
- Don’t just biopsy ulcers, include perilesional tissue
- Refer?
* suspicious lesions
* lumps within the upper lip (common site for malignant salivary gland lesions)
What should the biopsy sample be placed in before sent to pathology lab?
- Place immediately into 10% formalin
- Don’t place on guaze swab
- Sometimes if you place suture in mesial or distal aspect then helps the orientation for lab
- Include all relevant clinical info on pathology form to aid diagnosis
Why do you not use gauze on the sample?
- Distorts the sample
Why do you use filter paper on the sample?
- to reduce sample distortion
What injury is this an example of?
- Crush injury from a flat sample
What injury is this an example of?
- Tear injury from flat sample
- Epithelium been torn away