Abstract
With mammography alone it is often difficult to distinguish between benign and malignant microcalcifications in the breast, and image-guided biopsy is widely undertaken for clarification. National Health Service Breast Screening Guidelines recommend that representative microcalcifications must be demonstrated in core specimens on specimen radiography: to achieve high absolute sensitivity for malignancy, at least five flecks of calcium in three cores are required [1]. An innovative device (HILINA), which was designed and developed locally, fits onto the tube housing of the Novation/Nova with Opdima digital stereo biopsy unit (Seimens Corporation, Camberley, UK), and allows direct digital capture of core biopsy images during breast compression. This shortens the breast compression time and allows rapid termination of the biopsy procedure. Analysis of the visibility of microcalcifications in core biopsy specimens from 20 consecutive patients has demonstrated that this is a satisfactory, cost-effective method of documenting adequate sampling when compared with cabinet computed radiography.
Highlights
Breast-sparing oncoplastic procedures (BSOP) offer a predictive marker guiding use of anti-oestrogen therapy, and radical new alternative to mastectomy and conventional breast- expression profiling appears to select patients more or less likely to conserving surgery in early breast cancer treatment
The aim was to document attitudes to male radiographers and the effect on the programme performance parameters through a postal questionnaire completed by 85.8% of a random sample of 2,000 women recently screened by BreastCheck
Nine per cent would not have proceeded if the radiographer was male; 17.5% agreed that āIf there were male radiographers I would not return for another screening appointmentā; and 18.3% were unsure
Summary
Breast-sparing oncoplastic procedures (BSOP) offer a predictive marker guiding use of anti-oestrogen therapy, and radical new alternative to mastectomy and conventional breast- expression profiling appears to select patients more or less likely to conserving surgery in early breast cancer treatment. We have compared the results of screening with analogue and digital technology over our first 2 years, in terms of recall rates, cancer detection rates and positive predictive value, and found no overall significant difference in any of these parameters. Abnormalities are graded as A, B or C at consensus by the radiologists and reporting radiographers depending upon the mammographic likelihood of cancer and biopsy This means that patients can be allocated to one of our three assessment clinics and at specific times within those clinics to facilitate workflow. Methods A retrospective analysis of all breast cancer patients with recurrence who had completed 5 years of follow-up was performed. Infection control is not routinely included in the quality assurance process of all units
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