Breast Cancer is the most common malignant disease in women. To date, mammography is the only method of screening available; however, whilst this technique is highly sensitive, it suffers from having a sparse specificity. Histological samples are required in order to clarify any suspicious areas of tissue, where around 80% of tissue samples are determined to be benign. Surgery was once the preferred method of biopsy, however, this technique results in unnecessary injury and risk for 80% of the women who undergo the procedure. In certain cases, a core biopsy can be performed; although this is less specific and inapplicable for microcalcifications undetectable with ultrasound. As such, core biopsies are not able to replace the surgical techniques in these cases. Within this study, a new method of stereotactically guided vacuum breast biopsy was investigated in all patients (n=152) of the University of Halle treated between July and December 2001. The results were compared to those patients undergoing surgical biopsy in the same period (n=31). The analysis of the results revealed that the number of surgical interventions required to conclusively treat breast cancer is 1.76 lower (±0.6, CI 95% with p=0.0082) with the comple-mentary application of vacuum biopsy. Rates of sensitivity and specificity were 100%, similar to results reported by other comparable studies. In addition, the underestimation rate for cancer was 0% during a follow-up period of 33 months (median 12 month). In contrast to patients following surgical sampling of a benign lesion (n=38), vacuum biopsy did not interfere with the assessment of follow-up mammography. This may be compared to the cases where, after surgical biopsy, 13.2% of the mammographies showed relevant scarring thus making assessment impossible. In 58% of patients the assessment was limited due to relevant densifications. Stereotactically guided vacuum breast biopsy is therefore the method of choice to clarify uncertain mammographic findings, especially where microcalcifications and lesions are present that cannot be sampled by core biopsy. |