How Can I Care For My Skin After a Biopsy?
At the conclusion of your biopsy appointment, your doctor will dress the wound and bandage it up before you go home. Though it is not common, you may experience some bleeding after you leave the office. If this happens, apply pressure to the wound for two sessions of twenty minutes each. If the bleeding continues, call your doctor.
Depending on the location and type of biopsy performed, healing can take between a couple of weeks to a few months. During this time, you should clean the biopsy site in the morning and at night and avoid immersion in water until cleared by your doctor. Though all biopsies leave a scar, you can prevent enlarging your scar by protecting healing biopsy and avoiding bumping or stretching it. Applying Vaseline to the biopsy site can also aid healing.
Why Are Biopsies Done?
Biopsies are performed when the human eye isn’t enough to determine if a growth is cancerous. By sending a small sample of your skin to a lab, experts can run tests on it to ensure there are no abnormal cells that are already cancerous or could become cancerous. If there is cancer present, these tests can indicate its type and progression in order to develop the best treatment plan for you.
Biopsies are also helpful in diagnosing other conditions. For example, a biopsy can indicate actinic keratosis, bullous pemphigoid, and other inflammatory or infectious skin conditions. The tests performed in a biopsy help ensure accurate diagnoses in cases where a condition is present and can provide peace of mind for patients who have harmless growths.
