 Hi, I am Dr. Ashwin Raj Gopal. I am the consultant surgical oncologist at Manipal Hospital, Whitefield. This is one of the biggest myths that is prevalent right now. But as an oncologist, I can assure you that this is absolutely wrong. Research shows that doing a small biopsy does not cause any spread of cancer. In fact, biopsy is absolutely necessary. We need to find out what type of tumor that we have. There are two types of tumors. One is called as benign tumor and other one is called as malignant tumor. Based on biopsy, we can decide the type of treatment that is required. There are different kinds of biopsies. One, few are endoscopic biopsies, few which can be done with radiological imaging, and few which is called as an open biopsy. But all these biopsies are painless, which can be done on an OPD basis within a matter of about 5 to 10 minutes. There are a lot of patients who when I tell them that they need to undergo a biopsy, but they get scared and they go to some other doctor thinking that biopsy causes spread. But this is absolutely untrue.