Penile Cancer Diagnosis

When you come to Winship for care, we’ll start by ensuring you have a thorough and accurate penile cancer diagnosis.

Why is that important? Your penile cancer diagnosis will help us determine which treatment options will work best on your specific cancer. Our genitourinary oncology team specializes in penile cancer diagnosis and staging, and we have the technology available to provide the most detailed information about your cancer. And that means we’ll be better prepared to build a treatment plan to best work for you.

At Winship, we take a multistage approach to penile cancer diagnosis so we can determine exactly what’s driving your cancer and how best to stop it. We know you’re anxious to move forward with treatment, but having a detailed penile cancer diagnosis is critical, and it won’t take long. We promise. In fact, testing results are often available the same day or the next day.

Biopsy. Experienced physicians can detect some penile cancers by sight. To confirm a penile cancer diagnosis, your physician will remove a sample of the affected area (biopsy) to be tested for cancer in a lab. Biopsy is performed in office with local anesthesia.

Fine needle aspiration. If your Winship physician suspects your penile cancer has spread to your lymph nodes, you may have a procedure called fine needle aspiration. Fine needle aspiration is performed by our interventional radiology team using CT imaging to carefully navigate to the lymph nodes in the groin and collect a tissue sample for testing. Not all cancer centers examine the lymph nodes, but it is a crucial step to getting a thorough penile cancer diagnosis -- and can be lifesaving.

Diagnostic imaging. At Winship, we use top-notch diagnostic imaging, including the latest computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, to determine if and how far your penile cancer has spread. And because our radiologists specialize in genitourinary cancers, they are experts in diagnosing and staging penile cancer.

Molecular pathology. If your tumor is determined to be cancerous, our molecular pathologists will conduct genomic profiling to look at the DNA inside your tumor to identify any genetic mutations and biomarkers, or cell characteristics. Winship scientists, genomic and tumor sequencing experts will analyze what’s driving your particular penile cancer and then work with your oncologists to determine which types of treatment are most likely to work against it.