A. No it does not. In fact biopsy or FNAC is the only test by which the diagnosis of cancer is confirmed or ruled out.
Q. Can cancer always be diagnosed by FNAC or biopsy?
A. No. At times cancer can be missed by FNAC or biopsy. This is called “false negative” report. It means that the patient has cancer but the report has failed to pick up the correct diagnosis. It happens when biopsy material is taken from a wrong site and thereby producing incorrect result. This is called “sampling error”. Hence, it is of utmost importance that biopsy be taken from the correct site. In the event of a negative biopsy in a suspected cancer case, a re-biopsy should be done, as a false negative report can harm the patient immensely.
Q. Does cancer spread after operation?
A. No, it does not, provided it is done following certain oncological principles. A cancer should be removed with some healthy tissue around it. This is called negative surgical margin. This is most important in cancer surgery. It means a surgeon’s knife should never go through the cancer but beyond it through healthy tissue. If knife goes through the cancer then there will be spillage of cancer cells and it will spread. Hence cancer must be removed with some healthy tissue around it.
Q. Is it contagious?
A. No, it is not. People can share same bed, same utensils and towels, same toilets with cancer patients. It does not spread from one individual to another like other infectious diseases do.
Q. Is it curable? A. Many cancers are curable, provided it is diagnosed and treated at an early stage. With the advancement of scientific knowledge and newer drugs, cancer patients nowadays live much longer than before. However in spite of best effort and treatment, all cancers are not curable.
Q. What are the complications of chemotherapy?
A. Various chemotherapy drugs have various toxicity profiles. Toxicity following chemotherapy occurs because chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells as well as healthy cells of human body. That is why each chemotherapy drug has some side effects. However, most of these side effects can be well managed by various medicines.
Q. Does cancer spread after operation?