lipoma diagnosis

[atxchillin]

I'm a 32 year old male and I recently discovered a large (5cm diameter) growth in my shoulder joint.  My GP quickly dismissed it as a lipoma.  He said he would take it out but not until I'm off warfarin.  I will be on warfarin for the next 12 months due to a carotid artery dissection on the same side as the lipoma.

I'm curious if a lipoma can be diagnosed without a biopsy.   I would hate to wait 12 months only to find out its cancerous and has been spreading.  He offered to allow me to have an ultrasound to rule out cancer.  I found a radiology website that said an ultrasound may only be used to identify whether a mass exists but not to characterize the mass.  

Is the biopsy necessary to rule out cancer?   Will an ultrasound rule out cancer?

[sage009]

Just wanted to say there shouldn't be a reason  why you cant be taken off of warfarin and put on lovenox  for the procedure.  This is a pretty common way to handle cases where people are on blood thinners for some reason and need some type of surgical procedure done.  After the biopsy you go back to the warfarin.  I take coumadin and  had to do this a few times with no problems.  The lovenox is typically self injected with a syringe and is usually administered in the abdominal area. Trust me it sounds a lot worse than it is.  The first time is tricky but in my case after I did it I laughed that I worried one second over it. You just squeeze a little fold of skin also the needles are very thin.  May be a good idea to discuss this with your doctor 12 months is a long time.  Hope it all goes well.

[iam1butterfly]

I would agree with what you found on the website.
A biopsy is the only sure way to know if your dealing with Cancer.
An ultrasound is a diagnostic tool that utilizes sound waves to render an image.
It can detect if an abnormality is present; it can't determine what the nature of
that abnormality is.