“Can biopsy on a pregnant woman cause harm to the baby?”
My wife had a growth in her armpit, which the doctors felt looked abnormal. As a result a biopsy was recently done. We didn’t realise then that my wife was pregnant. Could the radiation from the tipsy have caused any harm to the baby inside?
7 Answers
We try not to irradiate pregnant patients if possible discuss the situation with the doctors.
If this was a CT guided biopsy then it is possible there was some scattered radiation. Speak with your doctor about the specifics of your situation.
Depends on what the doctor used to guide the biopsy. If the doctor used a CT guided biopsy, the baby will be exposed to X-rays. It can harm the baby, especially in the first trimester. You should talk to the doctor who did the biopsy and radiology and inform them that your wife is pregnant. But if she had an ultrasound guided biopsy, there's no X-ray exposure.
Punch or needle biopsy of the armpit lesion should not cause any harm to the baby.
No. The only biopsy that would harm the baby would be a biopsy of the uterus.
No It should not.
I think that depends on what kind of radiation they used to locate and biopsy the growth. If the biopsy was done with ultrasound guidance (most common) there is no radiation involved, and thus no risk. If the biopsy was done in a CT scanner, there is some scatter radiation, but not much. Usually in this case there would only be a very small area that was actually scanned and there is a good distance between the area scanned (armpit) and where the fetus is (low pelvis). While there is no "safe" dose of radiation to a developing fetus, it is likely very, very low if the biopsy was done with CT guidance. If it was, you can request a report on how much radiation was used during that scan and talk to your OB-GYN and/or your Radiation Oncologist (if she has seen one) about how much the fetus actually received and the risks associated with that dose.
