A Mayo Clinic article published in the journal, GUT, in January of 2015 looked at whether or not biopsies of cancers caused spreading of pancreatic cancers. What they found was very surprising. Not only did the cancers not spread the but the survival rate if there was a biopsy was much longer! Wow!
This is a bit hard to believe, but it is what they found when they did fine needle biopsies in 500 patients and did not in 1500 others. After 21 months 57% of those with a biopsy and 76% without the biopsy died!
While cancer cells are always spread during a biopsy, they almost never lead to spreading of the cancer. Dr. Len and Nurse Vicki explain why.
