Objective: To assess the potential of advanced breast biopsy instrumentation (ABBI) to clarify the diagnosis of impalpable mammographic lesions and to remove the entire malignant lesions with clear margins.
Design: Prospective assessment in a consecutive series of patients.
Setting: University hospital, Basel, Switzerland.
Subjects: 139 patients presenting with 144 impalpable microcalcifications or solid nodular densities evident on screening and follow-up mammograms that were suspicious of malignancy.
Main outcome measures: Feasibility, sensitivity, efficiency in obtaining definitive diagnoses in an outpatient clinic under local anaesthesia, feasibility of complete removal of a primary malignancy, and intervention-related morbidity.
Results: The ABBI procedure was successful in 135/144 (94%); an accurate diagnosis was made in 129/130 patients followed up (99%), sensitivity for malignant lesions was 31/32 (97%) and there were 2 complications (2%). Margins of the biopsy cylinder contained a malignant lesion in 26/31 (84%).
Conclusions: Excisional biopsy using the ABBI system is a reliable diagnostic tool with a low morbidity. As in other published series margins were often not clear of tumour and therefore the therapeutic use of the ABBI procedure is limited.