Patients

Have you heard of Tissue Exhaustion?  

Anyone who undergoes a core needle biopsy procedure (virtually all patients seen by a doctor to rule out a cancerous tumor) faces the potential that their biopsy specimen may not have sufficient tissue for all the tests his/her doctor wants to be run on it.

No patient wants to undergo a second biopsy if a single biopsy would suffice.

Routine use of the Crow’s Nest after every core needle biopsy may save many patients from this additional tissue trauma – because it collects and rescues the cells of yours that cling to the biopsy needle which would otherwise be discarded as medical waste.

You read that right. Medical waste.

After a biopsy, some of the cells harvested from your tumor are simply thrown away. In every biopsy procedure room there is a medical waste container. This is where the biopsy needle goes after the procedure is over.

The tissue is deposited in a formalin cup, and the needle is thrown away. But on the needle are, of course, thousands of dislodged cells. These are cells living, fresh out of the patient’s body, from the area that was just biopsied. They are a valuable, potentially highly useful, and currently untapped biological resource.

Tissue exhaustion is a problem that affects you

When a biopsy runs out of tissue (Tissue Exhaustion), patients miss out on genomic sequencing tests – which means that many miss out on newer, safer cancer-fighting drugs (often called “Precision Medicine” drugs). They are left with the brutal traditional options of radiation and chemotherapy.

Ordering a second biopsy is uncommon, because patients hate it, and insurance normally only covers a single biopsy.

If these loose cells could be recovered from the needle before it is discarded, each biopsy procedure would result in two specimens instead of one. The Crow’s Nest Biopsy Catchment System does that.

Patients can potentially avoid chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, with all of their well-known side effects.

If you are a patient with a solid tumor and are scheduled to undergo a core needle biopsy, ask your oncologist or interventional radiologist if your hospital uses the Crow’s Nest from Corramedical!

When you undergo a core needle biopsy, the tissue your doctor takes from your body is used for multiple things:

  • It’s put in formaldehyde and sent to the hospital’s pathology lab, to be examined under a microscope by a pathologist.
  • Your oncologist or primary care physician may order a portion of your tissue to be used for molecular testing, to determine what kind of cancer you might have.
  • Additional tissue may be wanted to test if your cancer is susceptible to newer drugs with fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
  • But if there isn’t enough tissue to run all these tests, doctors call that Tissue Exhaustion.