Comparing cancer detection rates of patients undergoing short term follow-up vs routine follow-up after benign breast biopsies, is follow-up needed?

Does Post-Biopsy Mammography at Short-Term Interval Contribute to Early Detection of Cancer in Patients Diagnosed with Benign-Concordant Microcalcifications on Stereotactic Biopsy?

“…Our results are also similar to the results of previous studies including biopsyproven benign lesions detected on US or mammography (6,(11)(12)(13). In the prior studies (6,(11)(12)(13), the type of breast lesion or the imaging modality used for guidance was not limited to a specific type, showing low malignancy rates for biopsy-proven benign lesions in general. In particular, for cases representing as microcalcifications-only without associated palpable lesions targeting for biopsy among the microcalcifications, distribution of the lesions broadly among the breast critically affects the diagnostic accuracy of stereotactic biopsy.…”

“…In total, the malignancy rate for the benignconcordant microcalcifications in this study was 1.1% (3/262), which is within the < 2% range recommended for ACR BI-RADS category 3 assessment (14). Our results are also similar to the results of previous studies including biopsyproven benign lesions detected on US or mammography (6,(11)(12)(13). In the prior studies (6,(11)(12)(13), the type of breast lesion or the imaging modality used for guidance was not limited to a specific type, showing low malignancy rates for biopsy-proven benign lesions in general.…”

“…Usually, imaging follow-up is recommended for benign-concordant breast lesions to avoid any delayed diagnosis of a possible false-negative biopsy (15), but at present there are no standardized imaging follow-up guidelines that specify a follow-up interval or duration for lesions (8). Results of recent literature show that short-term follow-up imaging does not contribute to early detection of false-negative biopsies (6,(11)(12)(13)16). As for microcalcification-only lesions, since a considerable amount of microcalcifications remain in the breast after stereotactic biopsy, imaging follow-up is critical not to overlook hidden malignancies among the remnant microcalcifications.…”

“…Imaging follow-up intervals vary among institutions, ranging from 6 to 12 months (5)(6)(7)(8)(9), and currently there are no strict post-biopsy guidelines for managing biopsyproven benign breast lesions. Recently, several reports suggested that short-term imaging follow-up of 6 months is unnecessary for asymptomatic benign-concordant breast lesions, since similar cancer detection rates were observed between patients with short-term follow-up and those with annual follow-up (6,(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)). Yet, most of these studies evaluated the outcomes of either US-guided biopsies or stereotactic biopsies of masses, and little has been evaluated focusing on the outcome of microcalcification-only lesions diagnosed as benign on mammography-guided stereotactic biopsy.…”

Evaluating imaging-pathology concordance and discordance after ultrasound-guided breast biopsy

“…A review of the images revealed that one lesion was highly suspicious for malignancy and should had been regarded as imaging-pathology discordant, and that the other lesion had been biopsied for calcifications, but no calcifications were seen on the specimen radiograph. All other studies have reported that no malignancies were detected at the biopsy site during short-interval follow-up [ 39 , 43 , 50 - 53 ]. Therefore, annual screening may be a reasonable follow-up protocol for benign concordant breast lesions assessed using US-guided CNB, provided that good imaging-pathology correlation has been achieved.…”