Month: February 2013

Core needle biopsy / Stanzbiopsie

It’s done, I had a core needle biopsy today.
It didn’t hurt at all – now, seven hours later, of course I feel a bit of pain.
Here’s the procedure:

  • Before she started anything she disinfected my left breast with spray
  • First I became three needles with anesthesia into my left breast. One puncture before, one over and one behind the Fibroadenoma (FA). That didn’t hurt.
  • Then, with a scalpel, the doctor cut a little part of the skin. I don’t know how long the cut is yet, I’ll know that Friday morning, when I can take the band-aid off.
  • Next she put the “hollow needle” close to my FA. I looked at it going into my breast on the ultrasound monitor. It looked like it went in a few centimeters deep – but everything’s bigger on the monitor, it probably was only 1-2 centimeters? I don’t know, forgot to ask. The diameter of the hollow needle was about 3-4 millimeters. Quite thick, I thought.
  • The doctor and her assistant then showed me how the sound will be when the needle goes into the FA to take a sample. It sounds like a stapler.
  • Then she took four samples of the tissue. It took about five minutes. Each time before the needle shot into my breast she fixated the hollow needle so that it doesn’t slip away. Every time before she did that she asked me “ready” and after I nodded she took a sample.
  • The FA started bleeding, which I didn’t expect and which gave me an unpleasant feeling, but she said that’s normal.

I got a compression bandage around my boobs, could hardly breathe. Over the cut I got another band-aid which I have to leave on for four days, no water is allowed to get close to it either. Just like with every cut, I guess.
I’ll get my results on Thursday, Valentine’s Day. Let’s hope that Cupid shot a good tumor with his bow today 🙂