Liver Biopsy - Review

[skiingfiend]

Liver Biopsy, BC Cancer, Vancouver, Feb 2024

I had an ultrasound guided liver biopsy yesterday and honestly it went better than I thought it would.

1. Change into a gown and take my place on the operating table.

2. The attending Dr. exposed my right abdominal area, sterilized it with alcohol, and masked the area off.

3. Performed preliminary scans and marked up my skin with a pen.

4. Applied local anesthetic (several needles) including into my liver.

5. Using a core sampling gun took 4 cores.

6. Using ultrasound checked for internal bleeding.

7. Wheeled me off to a recovery area for 2 hours, checked blood pressure every 15 minutes.

8. Wheeled me back to the operating room, final ultrasound check for internal bleeding.

9. Sent me home.

10. I ate a big meal and was feeling fully normal by mid-evening.

The only pain was the initial needles applying freezing. Taking the cores was mostly painless.

Each core sample went into my abdomen at the same spot and at the end I had one tiny bandage covering that target area.

The 2 primary concerns, both relatively rare, are infection and internal bleeding.

The only recovery recommendation was to take it easy on the exercising for a week, only light walking - no lifting.

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In summary, if you do have to go for a liver biopsy it is nowhere near as bad as a prostate biopsy and the actual time spent taking cores was less than 2 minutes.

[hopeful1956]

Glad to hear it was relatively painless. My husband took me in for my retroperitoneal biopsy last Sept. Like you, the initial freezing needle was a little bit painful, but the 6 samples taken were just slightly uncomfortable. (Benign) I also have a gigantic hemangioma on my liver, so I just might need a look at that next.

[Ian99]

Glad it went well, thanks for informing us. Good to know.

[gsun]

Good to hear.

[MouseAddams]

glad everything went smoothly. Now to hope for good news.

[skiingfiend in reply to MouseAddams]

Thanks.

Lets hope so. Some indication of a treatable condition would be nice.

[Yadifan]

Glad to hear this went smoothly for you. My husband is scheduled for a liver biopsy next week. I've been anxious over this new development. I appreciate your detailed post on this procedure. I hope the results you get are able to guide you to more options. Keep us posted.

[skiingfiend in reply to Yadifan]

They check to see if your freezing is in effect before starting the procedure. In my case they gave me extra freezing before starting the procedure and an extra dose after finishing. The final dose was to give me extra rest time for recuperation before it wore off.

[skiingfiend in reply to Yadifan]

Ask for heated blankets, if your facility provides them, before your procedure starts. It is so much more comfortable while undergoing the procedure.

[Yadifan in reply to skiingfiend]

Thank you for this! Will do.