New and More Efficient Breast Biopsy Procedure Developed by Scientists

According to the most recent issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (June 2009), scientists and researchers from the University of Western Ontario and The London Health Sciences Centre (Canada) have developed a new and more efficient breast biopsy procedure.

The procedure is based on a motorized arm that guides the biopsy needle to the targeted position avoiding mistakes that traditional biopsy (hand guided) procedures have. In addition, the new procedure reduced the time of the biopsy to 1/3 of that of traditional biopsy procedures.

However, please keep in mind that the new procedure was made as a prototype and need to be further tested in clinical trials. According to the study, a success rate of almost 96% was obtained with the new procedure. The old hand guided one has a success rate of 91%. Time spent on the procedure was reduced from 30 seconds (traditional system) to around 10 seconds for the new biopsy procedure.

It is always good news to have new procedures to be tested, especially on such common disseasesas is the case for breast cancer biopsies, which are, as you can imagine, a nuisance for thousands of women that undergo this type of procedure each year on a worldwide basis.

Source:

American Journal of Roentgenology. (June 2009 issue) Paper version