title: Monitoring surgical treatment of screen-detected breast lesions in Italy.
abstract: The object of this study was to assess quality of care and adherence to treatment guidelines of screen-detected lesions in Italy using a new audit system. Data on screen-detected cases surgically treated in 1997 were collected using a system (QT 2.3) developed within the Italian Group for Planning and Evaluating Mammographic Screening Programmes (GISMa) and the European Breast Cancer Screening Network. Results of 18 performance parameters were considered compared with the reference standards. In 1997, 515 lesions (335 invasive, 60 in situ and 120 benign) in 496 patients were collected from 14 departments in the Central and Northern area of Italy. The 18 indicators were analysed and grouped according to six quality objectives. Some results were good and others were excellent, such as intraoperative identification, breast conservation surgery, adequate axillary procedures and completeness of pathology reports, but most of them failed: waiting times, preoperative diagnosis, employment of frozen section on small lesions and avoiding axillary procedures in ductal carcinoma-in-situ. This work is a first attempt in Italy to evaluate and uniform the criteria adopted for quality control of breast cancer treatment, using a standardised system. Some results are good or excellent, the overall level of compliance with quality indicators is not satisfactory and corrective actions should be undertaken for a number of issues. A continuous monitoring should be performed and appropriate action taken in order to verify the effectiveness of the corrective actions and to provide screen-detected patients with the best quality of care.
authors.affiliation: Università di Firenze, Dipartimento Area Critica Medico Chirurgica, Sezione Clinica Chirurgica, Italy. vito.distante@unifi.it
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Distante
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Mano
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ponti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cataliotti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Filippini
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Giorgi
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Lazzaretti
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Marchesi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Perfetti
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Segnan
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery*; D002278:Carcinoma in Situ / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery; D018270:Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D008485:Medical Audit; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011859:Radiography; D012015:Reference Standards; D014850:Waiting Lists