[gjulianm]

> Maybe the right answer isn't to do a biopsy, but to monitor the area with follow-up scans?

Doctors have already thought of this. Several issues with it:

* Monitoring still causes anxiety and mental health issues which come with real effects on patient's quality of life. It's not "harmless".

* Unclear when to monitor and when to treat. It's also really hard to get enough data to characterize these early unspecific findings enough to get confidence on what to do.

* Monitoring via MRI might be just as useful as monitoring via symptoms or any other "passive" methods that do not require a previous scan.