A liver biopsy is sometimes necessary in order to accurately diagnose a number of liver diseases. A biopsy can also assess the level of damage to the liver and at what stage some of these conditions are at. A liver biopsy is vital in determining how severe the harm to the organ is in those with hepatitis C, and they can also detect cancers, infections, abnormalities in the liver, and the cause of why your liver is enlarged. A liver biopsy is an extremely safe procedure, with maybe one patient in a thousand having a serious complication from one.
When your physician performs a liver biopsy, they will remove a minute piece of tissue from the liver using a special needle. Your doctor will not order a liver biopsy unless the feeling is that it will help determine a problem with this vital organ, and not until all other avenues have been explored, such as X-rays, blood tests, and CT scans. You will have blood samples taken before a liver biopsy to make certain that your blood is properly clotting. Let your doctor know about any medications that you are taking, especially if they are blood thinners. About a week before your biopsy, you will be told to stop taking aspirin, ibuprofen, and anything else that can be considered an anticoagulant. A chest X-ray will be taken to make sure everything is in order.
You will be told not to eat or drink anything for the eight hours prior to your liver biopsy. If you are on any medications, your doctor will let you know if it’s alright to take them that on the day of the biopsy. A liver biopsy is considered to be a minor surgery and can be done at most hospitals while the patient is awake, using a local anesthetic. You will be placed on an intravenous fluid line that will give you a sedative or pain killer before the biopsy and asked to lie on a hospital bed on your back, or perhaps turned a bit to the left. You will have your right hand above your head as an anesthetic is injected into the region where your liver is. The physician will then make a tiny incision in your right side and insert the biopsy needle, usually while being guided by an image on an ultrasound machine.
Obviously you need to hold still while this is being done, in order to make sure that no other organs are damaged, especially the lungs and gall bladder which are located close to the liver. For five or ten seconds you will need to hold your breath when told to, as the needle goes into your liver. A dull pain may be felt as the needle obtains a very small portion of the liver that will later be examined. From start to finish the entire biopsy operation takes about twenty minutes. When the tissue has been extracted, a bandage will be placed over the incision and you will need to lie on your right side for a length of time, often for several hours. You will be monitored closely by a nurse for any signs of discomfort. Sometimes you will be in the hospital for a full twenty-fur hours before you are released, providing there are no complications and you have fully recovered from the sedative.
There are other methods used to obtain a tissue sample from the liver. In a laparoscopic biopsy, a special tube called a laparoscope is inserted through an abdominal incision. This tube is capable of sending images of the liver to the physician, who then employs the use of fine instruments in the laparoscope to remove a piece of the liver. This type of liver biopsy is done when the physician needs tissues from particular parts of the organ. During a transvenous biopsy, a tube known as a catheter is inserted into a vein in the neck and then guided down to the liver. Then a needle goes into the catheter and obtains a liver sample; transvenous biopsies are performed in this manner on patients that have problems with their blood clotting or who have fluid in their abdomen.
Someone will need to drive you home from the hospital after your liver biopsy, where you will be instructed to stay in bed for up to 12 hours resting. For the next week to ten days you will need to take things slow, and it is natural to expect some soreness in your right side, including your right shoulder. Any pain can be treated with acetaminophen, not aspirin or other similar anti-coagulants. About one in every hundred people who have a liver biopsy experience a problem with bleeding at the spot where the tissue was taken from the liver, but it needs to be addressed with a blood transfusion in only half of these instances. However, there is the possibility that the bleeding may need surgery, so be sure to know all the risks associated with a liver biopsy before you undergo one.
