My child had a lump in his ankle which was mistaken to a

Hello. This is Dr Geyik and I will be assisting you today.

Can I please ask your child's age and if any medical conditions? 

Do you know why they said it can be done under local anaesthetic?

Are you able to send a picture of the lump here for assessment?

The decision of whether a biopsy can be done under local or general anaesthetic depends on child's age and whether they can tolerate the procedure without having a lot of anxiety and causing issues. Also, if the lump is very large and/or deep and they need to work harder to get the biopsy, general anaesthetic might be preferred.

The other reason is that they could decide to remove the lump after the biopsy in which case general anaesthetic will be needed.

I can see the lump is very large. If the exact cause is not known, it might be better to have the biopsy under general anaesthetic as they might have difficulties to have the biopsy and might need more than one biopsy.

The might also need to explore a little bit to ensure they are not missing anything else.

Did they say whether they might consider removing the lump if necessary.

The other issue is that if this lump has a lot of blood supply, it is better to do it under general anaesthetic as the child move under local and cause complications.

All these tell me that they are not sure what this lump is and they don't want to cause any complications. General anaesthetic could just be for precautionary reasons and to make the whole procedure easier for both parties.

I suggest you speak to his doctors about what the MRI has shown. As I said, if there is a large blood supply, they will have no choice but do it under general anaesthetic.

You can also check with them again to see if there is a chance they could do it under local anaesthetic and they could explain their rationale to you clearly.

You are most welcome. Wishing him best of luck!

I have not seen the MRI result to say it has a large blood supply but that might be the case. It is quite large and it might be easier to do the biopsy under general anaesthetic to avoid any complications.