Therapeutic Procedure

A therapeutic procedure is a procedure in which the patient experiences relief from a symptom, a stop to the progression of a disease, or some other short or long term benefit. Many procedures in medicine are considered therapeutic procedures. Almost all surgeries are therapeutic procedures since they result in the treatment or cure of some disease.

 

The alternative to a therapeutic procedure is a diagnostic procedure. A diagnostic procedure is one in which information is gathered about a suspected disease process, usually to determine the best course of action. In many cases, a diagnostic procedure provides important information so that a therapeutic procedure, like therapeutic surgery, can be done.

 

There are a number of examples of therapeutic procedures in medicine. Removing a skin lesion can be considered a therapeutic procedure since it may result in the removal or a cancerous or pre-cancerous lesion from the body. Patients with arthritis often accumulate fluid in their joints as a consequence of the disease. A therapeutic procedure in which symptoms are relieved is one in which a needle is inserted into the knee and fluid is drained. This fluid drainage from a joint (arthrocentesis) relieves pressure and pain in the knee and is therefore a therapeutic procedure. If the knee is also injected with local anesthetic and a corticosteroid, it may provide the patient with short and long term (months) pain relief, making it a therapeutic treatment.

 

 

In surgery, virtually all procedures are therapeutic procedures. Removing diseased tissue from the body, repairing damaged tissues, and restoring normal biological function of the body are all situations in which a therapeutic surgery has been performed. In fact, since surgery is mostly concerned with therapeutic procedures, it is probably more helpful to discuss situations in which surgery is not therapeutic surgery.

 

Cosmetic plastic surgery is hardly ever considered to be therapeutic. In fact, the term cosmetic is almost the opposite of therapeutic. An argument could be made that cosmetic surgery provides a therapeutic benefit to the patient psychologically and emotionally, but it is not a standard way of thinking about therapeutic procedures.

 

A biopsy is another instance which is not necessarily a therapeutic surgery. A biopsy is when a bit of tissue is removed from the body for analysis. The biopsy tissue is examined under a microscope and analyzed in several ways. This allows the pathologist and surgeon to direct care based on the result. A common circumstance in which a diagnostic procedure would occur is cancer diagnosis. A biopsy is taken to rule out cancer in that tissue.

 

Sometimes a diagnostic and therapeutic procedure can be combined in the same procedure. In fact most therapeutic surgery ends in a sample of tissue being sent to a pathologist for further diagnosis. Combined diagnostic and therapeutic procedures occur in medicine all the time. Consider a patient that has a pleural effusion (fluid in the space around the lungs). The pleural effusion can interfere with breathing and oxygen getting into the blood. The procedure used to correct this is a pleurocentesis or thoracentesis. A thoracentesis involves a needle being placed in the pleural space to remove fluid. Removal of the fluid immediately helps the patient breath better (therapeutic procedure) and the fluid is sent for analysis to determine the cause of the abnormal fluid accumulation (diagnostic procedure).