I. Taylor et al., THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INVOLVED TUMOR BED BIOPSY FOLLOWING WIDE LOCAL EXCISION OF BREAST-CANCER, European journal of surgical oncology, 24(2), 1998, pp. 110-113
Aim. Following wide local excision of breast cancer approximately 25%
of patients have residual disease in the tumour bed. The aim of this s
tudy was to determine whether positive bed biopsy correlated with eith
er local recurrence or overall survival. M Method. Following wide exci
sion bed biopsies were taken at four separate sites from the tumour be
d. Histopathological assessment of the bed biopsies was made and compa
red to features within the primary tumour. Patients were followed-up o
ver a median period of 6.17 years and local recurrence and survival da
ta documented. Results. Two hundred and sixty-eight patients were incl
uded in the study and 63 had positive bed biopsies. In all, 85 patient
s had a recurrence of breast cancer and 69 died. Kaplan-Meier plots sh
owed no evidence of a difference in survival between bed biospy positi
ve and negative patients. Bed biopsy positive patients were at greater
risk of local recurrence. Conclusions. These findings suggest that po
sitive bed biopsy is associated with an increase in local recurrence r
ates but has no effect on overall survival following wide excision of
breast cancer.