Importance of biopsy studies in women with breast cancer

Without a biopsy, it is not possible to identify or diagnose abnormalities that suspect or suggest breast cancer, which is the leading cause of death in women worldwide. If a suspicious breast lesion is detected during examinations such as a mammogram, breast ultrasound, or MRI, additional tests are needed to determine if it is cancerous, and this is where biopsy methods are performed. Therefore, breast biopsy is a technique that involves taking a tissue sample from the lesion to be analyzed under a microscope by pathologists in the laboratory. However, the biopsy technique is usually very important and reliable, as it is the only technique that can definitively determine whether the suspected lesion is benign or malignant. Benign tumors are usually very common and non-cancerous, while malignant tumors such as breast cancer have the potential to spread to other parts of the body, so early detection is important to avoid this, as early detection plays a vital role in the prognosis of a malignant tumor. According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer has become the most common cancer in the world, causing 2.3 million cases in women and 685,000 deaths worldwide in 2020.Today, the breast biopsy method is an extremely useful method in the field of oncology, aiming to establish a diagnosis while complementing the breast imaging examination (mammography and ultrasound of the breast and MRI) and having information on the stage of the disease. The aim of our study was to investigate the clinical and histological features of breast cancer in women with cancer and to examine the different steps of biopsy in the laboratory. During my internship at the anatomy-pathology laboratory in Djibouti, the results were based on the census of patients who had undergone breast biopsy, it showed that there was also a male case among these patients, that is, male breast cancer is a rare type of cancer. Biopsy plays a critical role in women with breast cancer because it allows for accurate diagnosis and characterization of the tumor, and treatment planning helps to establish a prognosis and allows for monitoring and adjustment of treatment.