Breast intervention: current and future roles

Abstract

Imaging alone cannot always characterize a breast lesion, and triple assessment comprising clinical examination, imaging and pathology remains the gold standard.Breast intervention may be guided by mammography, ultrasound or more recently MRI.For the majority of diagnostic purposes relating to the breast, core biopsy is preferable to fine-needle aspiration, though the latter still has a role in certain situations.Vacuum-assisted biopsy (VAB) overcomes some of the shortfalls of core biopsy, and is increasingly utilized as a first-line technique for sampling microcalcifications.Interventional procedures, such as VAB, are being used selectively to therapeutically excise benign lesions such as fibroadenomas. Interventional radiological techniques play an increasingly integral role in the management of breast disease, both benign and malignant. Tissue diagnosis remains key in the diagnosis of malignancy and increasingly uses radiological guidance to obtain tissue samples. Continued improvements in the accuracy...