Experience with the advanced breast biopsy instrumentation system

OBJECTIVES: To report early experience with the advanced breast biopsy inst rumentation (ABBI) system and to compare the results with those of other pu blished studies. DESIGN: A nonrandomized case series. SETTING: An outpatient breast diagnostic centre at a large urban community hospital. PATIENTS: Thirty-four women; 27 had suspicious calcifications, 2 had a nonp alpable mass and 5 had both, INTERVENTION: The ABBI procedure to excise a breast lesion or obtain a repr esentative sample for histologic examination. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Success of the procedure with respect to diagnosis, sample quality, technical problems, margins of tumour free tissue and patie nt satisfaction. RESULTS: Malignant tissue was diagnosed in 7 women (21%) and atypical ducta l hyperplasia in 2 (6%), In all cancers, the obtained samples had malignant cells present at the margins or less than I mm away. Technical problems we re encountered in 32% of cases. Manual extraction of the specimen was requi red in 21% of cases, CONCLUSIONS: The preliminary data correlate well viiith those of other publ ished results. Although it is possible that a small number of cases and a r elatively high proportion of technical difficulties may represent a normal learning curve, there is a definite need for improvement of some ABBI compo nents, ABBI does not appear to provide adequate margins of uninvolved tissu e in patients with cancer and thus should not be used with curative intent, ABBI provides excellent quality samples for pathological study and good pa tient satisfaction. There are not yet enough data for meaningful comparison of ABBI with stereotactic core biopsy and excisional biopsy with needle lo calization.