Usually a period of time lapses after biopsy and before surgery which allows the tumor to “bud”, in other words, GROW from the puncture site! Not surprisingly, this growth and the extent of the budding is used in determining how aggressive to be with treatment! The more “budding”, the more aggressive treatment may be.
This article in Honest Pathology entitled What Does Tumor Budding Mean discusses this phenomena and refers to the puncture site as “the invaded now invasive front” of the tumor (rather than as “the invaded invasive front”) where the tumor is most likely to bud and invade surrounding tissue! The rate of budding from the biopsy site is considered a cancer marker of the tumor’s aggressiveness per the article, so it is the pathologist’s job to report about the quality and quantity of budding at the biopsy poke site after the tumor is removed and reaches the lab in order to help determine how aggressive treatment should be.
The big takeaway from this is how dangerous it may be to leave a biopsied tumor in the body which is exactly what happens when a woman decides that she will treat naturally instead of proceeding with surgical removal. If there is any chance a person will want to treat naturally, a “stab and grab” biopsy should be considered a possible hinderance to the natural treatment’s ability to work because it tends to induce budding/growth. An excisional biopsy removes the entire mass/tumor and then it is sent off to the lab for determination of its type, size, etc.
Click here to see another post that references a study that showed the differences in rates of spreading (metastases) of breast tumors that were biopsied using three different methods. Spoiler alert: Excisional biopsy had a much lower rate of spreading cancer than the Fine Needle Aspiration and the Stereotactic Core biopsy methods.
If you are being pressured to biopsy while a mass is still in your body and being told that a “stab & grab” biopsy will not spread cancer, the study in the linked post above is your “ammo”. Stick to your guns because your health matters!
Another advantage of an excisional biopsy over a stab & grab is that you will not end up with a metal clip or tag inside your body which gets placed beside your mass for the purpose of aiding the surgeon in finding the mass who is assigned to remove the mass. (If biopsy results of a stab & grab are negative, the woman has to keep that metal marker inside her breast and many women regret having that remain in their body.)