About five and a half hours

In the air to LAX

Same day

Biopsy, slides read, consultation

Results in 24 hours

Before most patients fly home

One visit

No second trip

Getting here

A day trip, if you want it to be.

Miami is outside comfortable day trip driving for most people. The flight to LAX is about five and a half hours, which turns the whole thing into a single day, and the appointment is built so you leave with the answer already in motion.

By air, the usual choice

  • Miami International (MIA). Service into LAX, and the flight itself is about five and a half hours.
  • Book a mid morning appointment. An early flight down leaves plenty of margin.
  • About an hour in the office. Ultrasound, biopsy, staining and the consultation.
  • Home the same evening. Preliminary findings usually reach you within 24 hours.

What to bring

  • Your imaging. Any ultrasound, mammogram or CT report you already have.
  • Your physician’s details. The report goes to whoever you name, wherever they are.
  • Nothing else. No fasting, no preparation, no sedation to arrange.
  • A return flight the same evening. There is no incision, so there is nothing to stop you flying.

Either way it is one trip. The reason patients travel for this is that the person taking the sample is the person reading it, so the answer does not wait on a laboratory somewhere else.

What are we sampling

The three biopsies Miami patients come here for.

A fine needle aspiration uses a needle thinner than the one used to draw blood. No incision, no stitches, local anesthesia only.

Thyroid

Thyroid nodule biopsy

Only 4 to 6 percent of thyroid nodules turn out to be cancer. Ultrasound guided sampling, graded on the Bethesda system, read on site. Thyroid biopsy

Breast

Breast lump biopsy

Most breast lumps are benign. If it is a cyst, draining it with the same needle often makes the lump disappear during the visit. Breast biopsy

Lymph nodes

Lymph node biopsy

Usually a node is simply doing its job. When it is hard, fixed, or has not gone away, cells answer the question in one appointment. Lymph node biopsy

Celina-M-Nadelman-MD
Why it is worth the trip

The person holding the needle is the person reading the cells.

In almost every other setting those are two different people, and the handoff between them is where the two weeks go. That handoff is the reason patients travel from Miami for a test that takes twenty minutes. Dr. Nadelman is one of very few physicians in the United States who is board certified in cytopathology and practices as a fine needle aspiration specialist. She performs the biopsy and she interprets it.

  • Head of the FNA Clinic for Los Angeles County at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Outpatient Center
  • Clinical instructor, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
  • Co-Director of Pathology, Charles R. Drew University
  • Residency and fellowship at UCLA. M.D., Keck School of Medicine of USC
The day itself

About an hour in the office.

Built so a patient who flew in that morning can be back at the airport in the afternoon with the diagnostic work already done.

01

Consultation and ultrasound

Dr. Nadelman examines the lump and looks at it on ultrasound first. Bring any imaging you already have.

02

The aspiration

Local anesthesia, then a few passes with a fine needle. There is nothing to stitch.

03

Read on site

The slides are stained and examined in the office lab while you wait. If the sample is thin she takes another there and then.

04

Fly home

Preliminary findings usually within 24 hours, sent to you and to whichever physician you name in Miami.

Miami questions

Asked before the trip.

How do most Miami patients get to the office?

Most fly. Miami International (MIA) connects to LAX and the flight is about five and a half hours, which makes the appointment a single day.

No. You can schedule directly with the office. If you do have a referring physician, Dr. Nadelman sends them the report and is glad to talk through the findings with them, and because she reads the slides herself that conversation happens with the person who made the diagnosis.

No. The slides are stained and read under the microscope while you are still in the office, because Dr. Nadelman is the cytopathologist as well as the physician doing the biopsy. Preliminary findings are usually available within 24 hours and go to you and to whichever physician you name.

She performs house call FNA biopsies anywhere in California, bringing the ultrasound and the staining setup with her. That does not extend to FL, so patients from Miami travel to the Los Angeles office. It is the usual answer for a homebound or immobile patient.

Waiting is the worst part. It does not have to take two weeks.

Next-day appointments are usually available, and house calls are available anywhere in California.

310.702.6701

1125 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 602
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Monday to Friday, 10 to 6

CELINA NADELMAN, M.D.

  • Biopsy and interpretation by a Board Certified Cytopathologist

  • Ultrasound-guided and palpation-guided FNAs

  • Preliminary diagnosis within 24 hours in most cases

  • Next day appointments available

  • We accept most major PPO insurances and Medicare.

  • Patient and physician time savings

  • Relief of patient anxiety

  • Medical, technical and fiscal resource conservation

  • Appropriate and expeditious triage of the patient and their sample

  • Diagnostic ultrasound services

WE ARE HERE TO HELP

Request an appointment with The Cancer Biopsy Doctor, Celina M. Nadelman, M.D. today.

Did you know we do house calls in the state of California? We can travel to you anywhere in California! Speak to our office about the details.