Objective: Screening mammography (as planned in Germany) will lead to an increasing number of breast biopsies. The purpose of this study was to determine the promise of directional large core biopsy as a patient-protecting therapeutic method.
Material and methods: 166 vacuum assisted, X-ray-guided biopsy procedures were analysed.
Results: Histopathologic examination resulted in 75.8 % benign lesions. Atypical proliferation and noninvasive neoplasia was found in 18.6 %, invasive carcinoma in 5.4 % of the biopsies. Complications were few. Neither skin- or chestwall injuries, nor pain or intraoperative bleeding caused an abortion. Postoperative we found four cases of bleeding, further on in 28.3 % a superficial, in 3 % a larger and deep hematoma, but in total without any operative revision. No infection was diagnosed. In the average 17.2 (8-31) specimens were removed. After excision of 18 probes the definitive histopathologic diagnosis was clear in all cases, also, the microcalcifications were found. The underestimation rate amounted to 3 of 35 cases.
Conclusions: This clinical study proves stereotactic vacuum-assisted biopsy as a relieable method for analysing indeterminate mammographically detected breast lesions, which shows lower rates of complications than conventional surgical procedures.