Photo Credit: Pikovit44

The following is a summary of “Vulvar biopsy: Punch biopsy or cervical forceps biopsy?,” published in the December 2023  issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Tuil, et al.

For a study, researchers sought to find out how often non-contributory biopsies happen with punch biopsy (PB) and cervical forceps biopsy (CFB) for a vulvar tumor seen in consultation. The second goal of the study is to find out how often a more serious disease is misdiagnosed in people who have had vulvar resection. The study looked back, described, and compared events at three sites. People in the study were women who had a vulvar biopsy between 2017 and 2022 during an evaluation for genital treatment at two hospitals and a city office. A punch biopsy or a cervical forceps biopsy was used to take the sample. 

The Mann-Whitney test was used to look at quantitative variables. Pearson’s or Fisher’s Xi2 tests were used to examine qualitative variables. The amount of importance was set at 5%. A study of 179 vulvar biopsies from 107 people was done in the past. Of these, 100 were punch biopsies, and 79 were cervical forceps biopsies.

There was a small difference between the PB and CB groups in the number of tests that didn’t help (P = 1). Their study had a secondary outcome that looked at 66 people who had a vulvectomy after a vulvar biopsy. Of these, 66 (97%) had a good match between the pathology of the vulvar biopsy and that of the vulvectomy tissue. Using punch or cervical tools for a vulvar biopsy has similar diagnostic performance and is linked to similar and low rates of underestimating invasive tumors.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468784723001344