An assessment of local anaesthetic biopsies of suspicious laryngeal and pharyngeal lesions
Evidence Overview
Background
- Biopsies under local anaesthetic can be undertaken in an outpatient setting, as an alternative to inpatient or day case biopsy procedures which require theatre time and a hospital bed.
- Biopsies under local anaesthetic are effective in identifying people who do not require further follow up. This means that patients can have their biopsy taken under local anaesthetic at the time of initial outpatient investigation and avoid needing a confirmatory biopsy under general anaesthetic in an operating theatre.
- Undertaking biopsies in an outpatient setting provides an opportunity to ease hospital resource pressures and reduce waiting times to diagnosis and treatment. A reduction in the number of patients requiring inpatient biopsy procedures will lead to substantial resource savings for NHSScotland.
- In circumstances where the use of reusable biopsy equipment is not feasible (for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic) disposable biopsy equipment provides an alternative means to perform biopsies. It should be noted that:
- no evidence is currently available to determine whether disposable biopsy equipment is as effective as reusable biopsy equipment
- the use of disposable biopsy equipment is more costly than the use of reusable equipment
- over the lifecycle, reusable equipment produces fewer carbon emissions compared with disposable equipment.
