Radioguided-surgery of early breast lesions.
BACKGROUND
Radioguided-surgery has been recently proposed in patients with clinically occult breast lesions. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of correctly locating and eradicating, by a single intralesional injection of a radiotracer, any breast lesion and, in the case of malignancy, to perform simultaneous sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy procedure.


METHODS
Sixty-three women with early breast lesions were enrolled: 42 were invasive carcinomas, 16 in situ ductal carcinomas (DCIS) and 5 fibroadenomas.


RESULTS
Scintigraphic images clearly identified the lesions in all patients while SLN/s were evident in 88% of them. At surgery all the breast lesions were easily radiolocalized and eradicated with minimum surgical trauma and, for those patients with invasive carcinomas, the SLN technique was performed in 86% of them. No skip metastases were found.


CONCLUSIONS
A single intralesional administration of radiotracer is an easy and reliable procedure to simultaneously locate and remove both the non-palpable breast lesion and the SLN when primary malignancy was intraoperatively confirmed.
Buonomo
O
O
Clinical Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, S. Eugenio Hospital, Italy.
Cabassi
A
A
Guadagni
F
F
Piazza
A
A
Felici
A
A
Piccirillo
R
R
Atzei
G P
GP
Cipriani
C
C
Schiaroli
S
S
Mariotti
S
S
Guazzaroni
M N
MN
Cossu
E
E
Simonetti
G
G
Pernazza
E
E
Casciani
C U
CU
Roselli
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015552:Injections, Intralesional; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000601:surgery; D015412:Mastectomy, Segmental / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D021701:Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy; D013668:Technetium Tc 99m Aggregated Albumin / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D013668:Technetium Tc 99m Aggregated Albumin; C083602:technetium Tc 99m nanocolloid