Reducing the Risk of Needle Tract Seeding or Tumor Cell Dissemination during Needle Biopsy Procedures.

PURPOSE: Many women fear that breast needle biopsies increase the risk of cancer spread. The purpose of this review article is to discuss the breast cancer literature regarding the risk of needle-biopsy-induced cancer cell displacement and its impact on local and regional recurrence and breast cancer survival. METHODS: A literature review is performed to discuss the risks and mitigation of needle-biopsy-induced cancer cell displacement. RESULTS: Needle-biopsy-induced cancer cell displacement is a common event. The risk is influenced by the biopsy technique and the breast cancer type. Evidence suggests that the risk of needle-biopsy-induced cancer cell displacement may potentially increase the odds of local recurrence but has no impact on regional recurrence and long-term survival. CONCLUSIONS: Technical modifications of needle biopsy procedures can reduce the risk of breast needle-biopsy-induced cancer cell displacement and potentially reduce the risk of local recurrence, especially in patients for whom whole breast radiation is to be omitted.

Mammary Paget's Disease: An Update.

Mammary Paget's Disease is a non-invasive cutaneous malignancy of the breast involving the nipple-areolar complex that is commonly mistaken for benign breast conditions, leading to delay in diagnosis. This review article discusses Paget's disease etiology, clinical presentation, differential diagnosis, diagnostic work-up, natural history and prognosis. This article also discusses evolving strategies for the surgical and non-surgical management of Paget's disease.

Targeted Intraoperative Radiotherapy Is a Safe Approach for Patients with Pacemakers: A Case Study and Literature Review.

Case reports detailing the effects of targeted intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) on patients with cardiac pacemakers (PMs) are rare. This growing population sub-group requiring IORT and lack of standardized guidelines necessitate more practical published research. An 81-year-old patient with clinical stage II, T1 N0 grade III, triple-negative invasive ductal carcinoma and an implanted single-lead chamber PM (VVIR mode, model: Biotronik, type Effecta SR) received targeted intraoperative radiotherapy at the time of wide local excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy. It presents the shortest distance between the outer diameter of the PM and IORT applicator in literature. Target IORT was performed utilizing an Intrabeam device (50 kV, Carl Zeiss Surgical, Oberkochen, Germany). This case elucidates the successful use of targeted IORT for breast-conserving surgery in a patient with a single ipsilateral chamber VVIR mode PM. No device failure or malfunction was reported for the PM before, during, or after the procedure. These findings support the use of targeted IORT for patients diagnosed with early-stage breast carcinomas who have a PM implanted. However, further research is needed to understand the safety of other methods and devices for IORT patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices.

Breast cancer care during a pandemic: an opportune time for cryoablation?

PURPOSE: Cryoablation is a minimally-invasive percutaneous procedure that is capable of reducing the psychosocial burden of surgical delay while also decreasing the morbidity of breast cancer therapy. The purpose of this editorial is to discuss the potential role of cryoablation for reducing the psychosocial burden of surgical delay during the COVID-19 pandemic by expediting the management of breast cancer while also lessening demand on limited healthcare resources. METHODS: This editorial critiques current expert opinion recommendations that aim to reduce viral transmission and preserve healthcare resources during the COVID-19 pandemic by advocating delay of elective breast cancer surgery. RESULTS: The editorial summarizes the current state of the evidence that supports the selective use of cryoablation as a definite or stopgap measure in the management of breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic or when healthcare resources are limited. CONCLUSIONS: As an office-based procedure performed under local anesthesia, cryoablation eliminates the need for operating room personnel and equipment while also reducing the psychosocial impact of delayed breast cancer surgery. By reducing the number of patient and healthcare provider interactions, cryoablation not only decreases the risk of viral transmission but also the need for personal protective devices during resource-limited times.

Underdiagnosis of Hereditary Breast Cancer: Are Genetic Testing Guidelines a Tool or an Obstacle?

PURPOSE: An estimated 10% of breast and ovarian cancers result from hereditary causes. Current testing guidelines for germ line susceptibility genes in patients with breast carcinoma were developed to identify carriers of BRCA1/ 2 variants and have evolved in the panel-testing era. We evaluated the capability of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines to identify patients with breast cancer with pathogenic variants in expanded panel testing. METHODS: An institutional review board-approved multicenter prospective registry was initiated with 20 community and academic sites experienced in cancer genetic testing and counseling. Eligibility criteria included patients with a previously or newly diagnosed breast cancer who had not undergone either single- or multigene testing. Consecutive patients 18 to 90 years of age were consented and underwent an 80-gene panel test. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant electronic case report forms collected information on patient demographics, diagnoses, phenotypes, and test results. RESULTS: More than 1,000 patients were enrolled, and data records for 959 patients were analyzed; 49.95% met NCCN criteria, and 50.05% did not. Overall, 8.65% of patients had a pathogenic/likely pathogenic (P/LP) variant. Of patients who met NCCN guidelines with test results, 9.39% had a P/LP variant. Of patients who did not meet guidelines, 7.9% had a P/LP variant. The difference in positive results between these groups was not statistically significant (Fisher's exact test P = .4241). CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that nearly half of patients with breast cancer with a P/LP variant with clinically actionable and/or management guidelines in development are missed by current testing guidelines. We recommend that all patients with a diagnosis of breast cancer undergo expanded panel testing.

Breast conserving surgery with targeted intraoperative radiotherapy for the management of ductal carcinoma in situ.

BACKGROUND: A prospective randomized controlled trial has established the efficacy of targeted intraoperative radiotherapy (TARGIT) in the management of invasive breast cancer treated with breast-conserving surgery (BCS). The purpose of this analysis is to evaluate the efficacy of TARGIT in the management of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). METHODS: A prospective nonrandomized trial was designed to evaluate the success of TARGIT in the management of DCIS, as measured by a low risk of requiring additional surgery or radiotherapy and an acceptable local recurrence rate (LRR). RESULTS: Fifty-five patients with DCIS received BCS and TARGIT from November 2007 to March 2017. Median patient age was 57 years (range, 42-83 years) and median histological lesion size was 14.4 mm (range, 2-51 mm). Four patients required either re-excision and/or whole breast irradiation, yielding a rate of additional therapy of 7.3% (4 of 55). Among 46 women administered TARGIT at the time of initial BCS, two local recurrences were observed yielding a 4.3% (2 of 46) LRR at 46 months median follow-up (range, 4-116 months). There were no clinically significant adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary evidence indicates TARGIT can be performed with a low risk of requiring additional therapy (7.3%) and an acceptable LRR (4.3%) when administered at the time of BCS.

Results from the American Society of Breast Surgeons Oncoplastic Surgery Committee 2017 Survey: Current Practice and Future Directions.

INTRODUCTION: Oncoplastic surgery is emerging as a validated, safe, patient-centric approach to breast cancer surgery in the United States. The American Society of Breast Surgeons Oncoplastic Surgery Committee (ASBrS-OSC) conducted a survey to assess the scope of practice and level of interest in oncoplastic surgery among its members. Furthermore, the group sought to identify barriers to incorporating oncoplastic skills in a surgeon's practice. METHODS: A 10-question survey was administered in March 2017 to the entire ASBrS membership using an online format. Three solicitations were sent. Unique identifiers allowed a single response. RESULTS: Of the 2655 surveys sent out, 708 members responded. Nearly all (99%) respondents had at least some interest in oncoplastic surgery. The current rates of performing nipple-sparing mastectomy, adjacent tissue transfer, and breast reduction with lumpectomy were 80, 60, and 51%, respectively. A minority of respondents reported independently performing breast reductions/mammaplasties (19%) or contralateral symmetrization (10%). Barriers to learning oncoplastic surgery included surgeon's time and access to oncoplastic educational material/courses. Most respondents felt that training courses and videos may allow them to better incorporate oncoplastic techniques in their practices. CONCLUSIONS: The interest in oncoplastic surgery among U.S. surgeons is significant, yet there are barriers to incorporate these surgical techniques into a breast surgeon's practice. As professional organizations provide access to effective training and enduring educational resources, breast surgeons will be enabled to develop their oncoplastic skill set and safely offer these techniques to their patients.

Intraoperative radiotherapy: Patient selection, management, and follow-up.

Intraoperative partial breast radiotherapy is an alternative or an adjunct to fractionated whole breast irradiation for the administration of adjuvant radiotherapy in breast cancer following breast conserving surgery. Establishing intraoperative radiotherapy as a therapeutic modality requires a multidisciplinary approach to patient selection, workup, surgery, radiation protocols, chemotherapy, and patient follow up. In this article, we review the published evidence for best clinical practice, as a guide to the introduction of intraoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer treatment.

Targeted Intraoperative Radiotherapy for the Management of Ductal Carcinoma In Situ of the Breast.

Multiple long-term studies have demonstrated a propensity for breast cancer recurrences to develop near the site of the original breast cancer. Recognition of this local recurrence pattern laid the foundation for the development of accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) approaches designed to limit the radiation treatment field to the site of the malignancy. However, there is a paucity of data regarding the efficacy of APBI in general, and intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT), in particular, for the management of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). As a result, use of APBI, remains controversial. A prospective nonrandomized trial was designed to determine if patients with pure DCIS considered eligible for concurrent IORT based on preoperative mammography and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CE-MRI) could be successfully treated using IORT with minimal need for additional therapy due to inadequate surgical margins or excessive tumor size. Between November 2007 and June 2014, 35 women underwent bilateral digital mammography and bilateral breast CE-MRI prior to selection for IORT. Patients were deemed eligible for IORT if their lesion was ≤4 cm in maximal diameter on both digital mammography and CE-MRI, pure DCIS on minimally invasive breast biopsy or wide local excision, and considered resectable with clear surgical margins using breast-conserving surgery (BCS). Postoperatively, the DCIS lesion size determined by imaging was compared with lesion size and surgical margin status obtained from the surgical pathology specimen. Thirty-five patients completed IORT. Median patient age was 57 years (range 42-79 years) and median histologic lesion size was 15.6 mm (2-40 mm). No invasive cancer was identified. In more than half of the patients in our study (57.1%), MRI failed to detect a corresponding lesion. Nonetheless, 30 patients met criteria for negative margins (i.e., margins ≥2 mm) whereas five patients had positive margins (<2 mm). Two of the five patients with positive margins underwent mastectomy due to extensive imaging-occult DCIS. Three of the five patients with positive margins underwent successful re-excision at a subsequent operation prior to subsequent whole breast irradiation. A total of 14.3% (5/35) of patients required some form of additional therapy. At 36 months median follow-up (range of 2-83 months, average 42 months), only two patients experienced local recurrences of cancer (DCIS only), yielding a 5.7% local recurrence rate. No deaths or distant recurrences were observed. Imaging-occult DCIS is a challenge for IORT, as it is for all forms of breast-conserving therapy. Nonetheless, 91.4% of patients with DCIS were successfully managed with BCS and IORT alone, with relatively few patients requiring additional therapy.

Treatment and Prognosis of Rare Breast Cancers.

Management algorithms for invasive and non-invasive ductal and lobular breast carcinomas are well-established. Because of their very nature, rare histologic types of primary breast cancers are not represented in practice guidelines and thus present a challenge to the practicing clinician who must make recommendations for surgical treatment, axillary staging, and adjuvant therapy, as well as counsel patients as to their expected disease course and prognosis. Herein, case reports and published series of rare types of primary breast cancer including adenoid cystic, mucoepidermoid, metaplastic, squamous, neuroendocrine, encysted papillary, and micropapillary types will be reviewed to provide a basis for treatment planning for patients presenting with these rare primary breast malignancies.

Intraoperative radiotherapy of the breast for early-stage breast cancer: ready for primetime.

The findings of the TARGIT A and ELIOT prospective, randomized controlled trials provide compelling data regarding the efficacy and safety of single fraction intraoperative radiotherapy as an alternative to standard postoperative radiotherapy in the management of early-stage breast cancer. This editorial summarizes the findings of both studies and discusses the importance of patient selection in identifying potential candidates for intraoperative radiotherapy.

Triangle resection with crescent mastopexy: an oncoplastic breast surgical technique for managing inferior pole lesions.

Resection of inferior pole breast cancers commonly produces inferior cosmetic results, particularly when resection of skin is required. The triangle resection with mastopexy is one of several oncoplastic breast surgical techniques that enable resection of inferior pole lesions with preservation if not improvement of breast cosmesis. This procedure may be combined with unilateral or bilateral mastopexy to further improve breast cosmesis in patients with mild to moderate ptosis.

Mammographic findings after intraoperative radiotherapy of the breast.

Intraoperative Radiotherapy (IORT) is a form of accelerated partial breast radiation that has been shown to be equivalent to conventional whole breast external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in terms of local cancer control. However, questions have been raised about the potential of f IORT to produce breast parenchymal changes that could interfere with mammographic surveillance of cancer recurrence. The purpose of this study was to identify, quantify, and compare the mammographic findings of patients who received IORT and EBRT in a prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial of women with early stage invasive breast cancer undergoing breast conserving therapy between July 2005 and December 2009. Treatment groups were compared with regard to the 1, 2 and 4-year incidence of 6 post-operative mammographic findings: architectural distortion, skin thickening, skin retraction, calcifications, fat necrosis, and mass density. Blinded review of 90 sets of mammograms of 15 IORT and 16 EBRT patients demonstrated a higher incidence of fat necrosis among IORT recipients at years 1, 2, and 4. However, none of the subjects were judged to have suspicious mammogram findings and fat necrosis did not interfere with mammographic interpretation.

Accuracy of predicting axillary lymph node positivity by physical examination, mammography, ultrasonography, and magnetic resonance imaging.

BACKGROUND: Axillary lymph node status continues to be among the most important prognostic variables regarding breast cancer survival. We were interested in our ability to accurately predict axillary nodal involvement by using physical examination and standard breast imaging studies in combination. METHODS: A retrospective review was performed of 244 consecutive patients diagnosed with invasive breast carcinoma between May 2008 and December 2010 who underwent physical examination of the axilla, digital mammography, axillary ultrasonography, and contrast-enhanced breast magnetic resonance imaging and who had subsequent histopathologic evaluation of one or more axillary lymph nodes. RESULTS: A total of 62 (25%) of 244 women were found to have positive axillary lymph nodes on final histopathologic examination, 42% of whom were able to be identified preoperatively. The sensitivity for predicting axillary metastasis if any one or more examination modalities were suspicious was 56.5%. The specificity for predicting axillary metastasis if any three or more modalities were suspicious was 100%. Of the patients who had all four modalities negative, 14% were ultimately found to have histologically positive nodes at the time of surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Physical examination and multimodal imaging in combination are useful for preoperative axillary staging and treatment planning. However, they remain inadequate definitive predictors of axillary lymph node involvement.

Analysis of the Impact of Intraoperative Margin Assessment with Adjunctive Use of MarginProbe versus Standard of Care on Tissue Volume Removed.

Breast conserving surgery has been accepted as the optimal local therapy for women with early breast cancer, emphasizing the necessity to balance oncologic goals with patient satisfaction and cosmetic outcomes. In the move to enhance a surgeon's ability to achieve histologically clear margins intraoperatively at the initial surgery, the MarginProbe (Dune Medical Devices, Caesarea, Israel) has emerged as an effective tool to accomplish that task. Based on previously reported success using the device, we assessed cosmesis and tissue resection volumes among participants in a randomized-controlled trial comparing the standard of care lumpectomy performed with and without the MarginProbe. The use of the MarginProbe device resulted in a 57% reduction in reexcision rates compared to the control group with a small increase in tissue volume removed at the primary lumpectomy. When total tissue volumes removed were analyzed, the device and control groups were still very similar after normalization to bra cup size. We concluded that the MarginProbe is an effective device to assist surgeons in determining margin status intraoperatively while allowing for better patient cosmetic outcomes due to the smaller volumes of tissue resected and the reduction in patient referrals for second surgeries due to positive margins.

Features associated with successful recruitment of diverse patients onto cancer clinical trials: report from the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group.

BACKGROUND: The clinical trials mechanism of standardized treatment and follow-up for cancer patients with similar stages and patterns of disease is the most powerful approach available for evaluating the efficacy of novel therapies, and clinical trial participation should protect against delivery of care variations associated with racial/ethnic identity and/or socioeconomic status. Unfortunately, disparities in clinical trial accrual persist, with African Americans (AA) and Hispanic/Latino Americans (HA) underrepresented in most studies. STUDY DESIGN: We evaluated the accrual patterns for 10 clinical trials conducted by the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) 1999-2009, and analyzed results by race/ethnicity as well as by study design. RESULTS: Eight of 10 protocols were successful in recruiting AA and/or HA participants; three of four randomized trials were successful. Features that were present among all of the successfully recruiting protocols were: (1) studies designed to recruit patients with regional or advanced-stage disease (2 of 2 protocols); and (2) studies that involved some investigational systemic therapy (3 of 3 protocols). DISCUSSION: AA and HA cancer patients can be successfully accrued onto randomized clinical trials, but study design affects recruitment patterns. Increased socioeconomic disadvantages observed within minority-ethnicity communities results in barriers to screening and more advanced cancer stage distribution. Improving cancer early detection is critical in the effort to eliminate outcome disparities but existing differences in disease burden results in diminished eligibility for early-stage cancer clinical trials among minority-ethnicity patients.