Subsequent Marking under Ultrasound Guidance of Vacuum-Assisted Breast Biopsy Areas after Receipt of Histology: A Feasibility Study of a New Technique

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and the accuracy of a secondary, metachronous ultrasound (US)-guided marking of the stereotactic vacuum-assisted breast biopsy (ST-VABB) area. Materials and Methods: The institutional ethics committee approved the study. The retrospective study included 98 patients. In ST-VABB of 45 women, no tissue markers were deployed at the biopsy site, even if no residual calcifications remained. After histology proved the necessity for a subsequent operation, the biopsy site was marked under US guidance using a coil marker. All interventions were technically successful. No complications occurred. Mammography was done to visualize the coil deployment. The distances from the center of the lesion and the biopsy cavity to the coil location were measured in both planes to evaluate the accuracy of the marking procedure. Results: In 24 of the 46 cases, the whole lesion was biopsied without residual elements. The mean time between ST-VABB and sonographic marking of the lesion was 9.7 days (median 6.5). The biopsy cavity could be detected in 40 (87%) cases and thus marked exactly. The mean time of US-guided marking was 12.5 min. The mean distance between the coil and the target lesion was 0.6 ± 1.5 cm in the craniocaudal (cc) view and 0.5 ± 1.5 cm in the mediolateral (ml) view for all markings. The mean delta value from the distance nipple–original lesion and from the distance nipple–coil was 0.85 ± 1.2 cm (median 0.5) in the cc view and 0.88 ± 1.2 cm (median 0.6) in the ml view for all cases. Clip migration was not observed. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates the feasibility and the technical success of secondary metachronous coil marking of the biopsy site under US guidance after receipt of histology. This approach seems to be a cost-effective alternative to the standard procedure of the primary coil marking especially in all completely removed lesions. It may offer advantages for allergic patients.