Tissue sampling in the era of precision medicine: comparison of percutaneous biopsies performed for clinical trials or tumor genomics versus routine clinical care.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine if patients undergoing percutaneous biopsy for genetic profiling are undergoing more biopsies (procedures, passes per procedure), or experiencing more procedure-related complications.
Methods: 60 patients undergoing biopsy procedures for genetic profiling were retrospectively compared with 60 consecutive control patients undergoing routine biopsies. Procedural details and related complications were collected. Results were analyzed using t-tests and logistic regression.
Results: Biopsied organs included mainly lung (n = 31), liver (n = 50), and lymph nodes (n = 18). The average number of core biopsy passes was 3.45 in the study group and 2.18 in the control group (0.73, 1.81; p = 0.0001). The average study patient underwent 1.44 biopsy procedures by radiology from 2016 to 2017, whereas the average control patient underwent 1.08 (0.1657, 0.5010, p = 0.0002). Results were similar when looking at the subset of patients undergoing liver biopsies. In our cohort of 120 patients total, only 6 complications were noted. There were 4 complications in the control patients and 2 complications in the study patients, all of which were pneumothoraces in patients undergoing lung biopsy; only 2 of these required treatment. The odds ratio for a complication occurring from an increase in one core biopsy is 1.07 (0.601, 1.573; p = 0.775), suggesting no significant relationship among the number of biopsies taken and the probability of complication in this cohort.
Conclusions: Patients being biopsied for genetic profiling or clinical study enrollment are undergoing more biopsy procedures and more biopsy passes per procedure, but are not experiencing a detectable increased rate of complications in this small cohort, single-center study.