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Most broadly speaking, invasive vs non-invasive... though some would argue it's more of a scale of invasion.

Consider a patient who goes to a hospital appointment with suspected cancer in their abdomen... on examination, the doctor would look at the patient, feel the relevant parts of their body, maybe listen to heart/lung/bowel sounds with a stethoscope, maybe look at their eyes with an otoscope. Those are all non-invasive.

After this, taking blood and getting a urine sample would be a bit more "invasive".

CT scanning or MRI is still quite non-invasive.

A diagnostic laparotomy - where surgeons literally open someone's body to look at what may be going on - is fairly invasive.

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15y ago

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