A biopsy is the removal of a small piece of tissue to determine if it is diseased. Biopsy use in dentistry is limited to two areas. The first is a biopsy of hard tissue such as tooth or both; the second is a biopsy of soft tissue i.e. anything other than bone or tooth.
Soft tissue biopsy is used most frequently in the diagnosing of oral cancers. In order to diagnose an oral cancer a brush biopsy is performed. The brush biopsy is used in oral cancer detection to identify oral lesions that may need further evaluation. The soft nylon brush obtains a full transepithelial biopsy specimen and the analysis is computer-assisted providing exceptionally high levels of accuracy.