The Design of a Core Biopsy Needle with a Larger Sample Extraction Size

Abstract

Acquiring core biopsy samples requires a minimally invasive procedure in which tissue samples are collected from internal organs for histologic diagnosis. Usually, a clinician requests and extracts core biopsy samples when there is a suspicious lump in the body. Samples are used to diagnose various forms of cancer and other diseases. However, to have enough sample size to perform histological tests, clinicians must insert/extract the core biopsy needle a couple of times. These multiple insertions/extractions might reduce the healing process and increase the patient’s risk of infection, internal organ damage, and unwanted bleeding. To address such an issue, it is recommended to obtain the required amount of tissue sample in a single insertion/extraction. In this study, a 14-gauge core biopsy needle (CBN) design, with four sample notches, was designed instead of the conventional one-sample notch to maximize the size of the sample being collected. Furthermore, sample notches were redesigned in a plus (+) cross-sectional pattern to improve the overall strength of the core biopsy needle at the sample notch area. This plus-shaped design of the sample notch enables the decrease of the thickness of the metal the biopsy needle is made from, increasing the sample notch size and thus increasing the total sample size extracted. In this design, each sample notch can collect 13.14 mm3 of sample. Hence, with four sample notches, the total sample being collected is 52.56 mm3 compared to conventional CBNs that can collect a sample size of 30.94 mm3 only. A significant increase of up to 69.88% in the sample size being collected was calculated compared to 14-gauge conventional CBNs, such as Achieve® biopsy needles.