The present disclosure relates to a biopsy device for sampling a specimen from a biological tissue.
A biopsy is a process of sampling a specimen from a biological tissue of a lesion of a patient who may be suffering a disease such as cancer or the like and inspecting the sampled specimen. In the biopsy, an operator samples the specimen from the biological tissue while visually observing the affected area or sampled region through an endoscope. In order to make a conclusive diagnosis of a disease on the basis of a biopsy, it is preferable for the operator to diagnose as many biological tissues as possible for higher diagnostic accuracy. Generally, however, since the biopsy instrument includes forceps and a needle, it is difficult to sample an amount of tissue required for a diagnosis from the patient in a single piercing process. JP-T-2004-517706 discloses a device including a helical tissue receiving element and a severing element for severing a tissue in cooperation with an outer circumferential surface of the helical tissue receiving element for the purpose of efficiently sampling a specimen from a biological tissue.
The device disclosed in JP-T-2004-517706 may appear to allow the tissue receiving element to sample a large amount of tissue in one sampling action. However, since the tissue receiving element is slender and helical, it is not sufficiently rigid. Therefore, when an operator attempts to pierce a biological tissue to secure the device in position with respect to the biological tissue, the operator finds it difficult to quickly pierce the biological tissue with a piercing spike and firmly secure the piercing spike of the device in place. This problem manifests itself when the biological tissue to be pierced is a soft tissue such as a liver or a lung. Inasmuch as the piercing spike is not securely held in position, the piercing spike may be dislodged while the operator is attempting to sample a specimen, and hence the operator may be unable to sample a specimen efficiently.