During a surgical biopsy, a surgeon makes an incision in your skin to access the suspicious area of cells. Examples of surgical biopsy procedures include surgery to remove a breast lump for a possible breast cancer diagnosis and surgery to remove a lymph node for a possible lymphoma diagnosis. Surgical biopsy procedures can be used to remove part of an abnormal area of cells (incisional biopsy).
Blood cancer is a type of cancer or tumor. Blood cancer hurts the blood, bone marrow, lymph, and lymphatic system. Sometimes more than one body part is hurt. The cause is usually different from other types of cancer. The way to find out if a person has this cancer is also different. The treatment is usually drugs. People with blood cancers see a kind of doctor called a hematologist (blood doctor) or oncologist (cancer doctor).
Myeloma, a cancer that starts in the blood's plasma cells, grows and accumulates myeloma cells in the body's bone marrow, eventually damaging the kidneys and bones themselves. Also known as multiple myeloma or plasma cell myeloma, this disease is the second most common blood cancer in the United States, accounting for about 1% of all cancers. Each year, the US population sees approximately 30,000 new myeloma diagnoses, resulting in around 13,000 deaths.