Predicting complete removal of impalpable breast carcinomas using stereotactic radiologically guided surgery.

The stereotactic ABBI (Advanced Breast Biopsy Instrumentation; USSC, Norwalk, CT, USA) breast biopsy system allows the excision of suspicious, impalpable, breast lesions under local anaesthesia using a disposable cannula of up to 2·2 cm in diameter. Many of the excised lesions do not reach the surgical margins. A retrospective pilot study suggested that at reoperation most breasts were tumourfree, so reoperation may have been unnecessary. If it were possible to predict from an ABBI biopsy specimen which small breast cancers could be removed, then further surgery could be limited to a minimally invasive procedure for the assessment of the axillary status. This study examined all breast carcinomas diagnosed using the ABBI procedure that were subsequently treated with surgery at this centre. The main objective was to see if there was a way to predict the complete absence of tumour in the remaining breast that might make reoperation unnecessary.