What is an Oral Biopsy?
Oral Biopsy is a surgical procedure to obtain tissue from the patient’s oral cavity, for microscopic examination, usually to perform a diagnosis.

Purpose of an Oral Biopsy
An Oral Biopsy can be performed for several reasons Sometimes:
• There are inflammatory changes in the oral cavity of unknown cause that persist for long periods.
• An oral lesion interferes with proper oral function.
• For bone lesions that are not specifically identified by clinical examination and X-rays, or any oral lesion, that has the characteristics of a malignancy.

Procedure of Oral Biopsy
• Prior to performing an Oral Biopsy, the oral and maxillofacial surgeon should be fully aware of the patient’s medical status.
• This would involve a thorough review of the patient’s medical and dental history, including previous surgeries, medications, allergies, and any social behaviours, such as smoking, alcohol use, and illicit drug use.
• The oral surgeon should also perform a thorough clinical and radiographic exam.
• An Oral Biopsy is usually performed under either a local anaesthetic, applied locally with infiltration near the lesion, or then, regionally, with a nerve block technique. However, the oral pathologist should not apply the anaesthetic directly into the lesion, or superficially in and around the lesion, as this may result in a false diagnosis.
• Once the local anaesthetic is applied, the oral surgeon should firmly retract the soft tissues surrounding the lesion, and should make an elliptical incision around the lesion, with a minimum of a 1 mm margin.
• Once the lesion has been freed from the remaining soft tissues, it should be immediately placed into a sterile pathology specimen jar, containing 10% buffered formalin for fixation. The container must be labelled with accurate patient information, such as patient name, birthdate, date, and site of biopsy.
• After the Oral Biopsy, firm manual pressure should be applied to the biopsy area to stem any bleeding. Finally, the incision should be closed using either resorbable or non-resorbable sutures. Sterile gauze should again be applied to the surgical site to assist with blood clotting and to prevent the swallowing of blood by the patient.
• Due to the slight oozing of blood from the surgical site for about 24 hours, the patient should be provided with a packet of gauze to change every 20 to 30 minutes over the course of a day. The gauze should not be kept in the mouth overnight.