Normal colonoscopy so why take biopsies

[Nursemel]

Hi all
I went for a colonoscopy a few days ago following or bleeding, mucous, pain and weight loss for weeks. I had sedation but was very awake and alert. The dr even asked if I'd like to watch the screen. Anyway the dr said it all looks healthy but he took lots of biopsies. Around 6 of what I could see. Is this normal? Are biopsies always taken if the colonoscopy is normal? I'm worried :/

 

[Clash]

The biopsies are taken to see if there is inflammation or abnormalities at the histological level(cellular), you can have inflammation at the cellular level even if things look fine at the endoscopic(visual) level.

Biopsies should be taken during colonoscopies and most often are.

 

[Nursemel]

Thanks clash
That has really reassured me. Do you know what they might check the biopsies for? I was a happy when I was told everything is normal but then I was told I need to wait 3 weeks for the biopsy results....which now has made me anxious

 

[kiny]

Like clash said, they should be taken when the opportunity arises.

They offer a wealth of information, a histologist will look over them, they can be stained, indexed, sent to another lab, etc.

And they are often beneficial regardless if there's inflammation or not.

Also, people tend to think a biopsy is big or invasive, a biopsy is the size of the head of a needle, it's tiny.

 

[Clash]

The biopsies check for a few things but if you have been diagnosed CD then mainly they are checking for inflammation(active CD) at the cellular level.

 

[Dukeis]

Here in the states biopsies are always taken, well at least by any doctor who knows what they are doing. I believe the recommendation now is 4 biopsies every 10cm. My last colonoscopy looked normal as far as looking at it. Turned out though I had precancerous dysplasia at my cecum. I'm very thankful I had a doctor who believed in doing many biopsies. If I had a doctor do a colonoscopy and then tell me they never took biopsies I would be looking for a new doctor. Then again I'll never have another colonoscopy.

 

[kiny]

Another things that's important, is that a biopsy is a very good way to differentiate between intestinal TB and crohn's disease. They will immunostain the biopsy with a TB antibody.

Other things they do is look at the way the crypts look, and the fact they can keep their histology slides in a record, means they can see the evolution, look at them again, etc.

Also, biopsies are very pretty after they're stained, there's people with thousands of biopsy pictures on flickr and other sites ~