Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Feb;25(1):13-24.
doi: 10.4048/jbc.2022.25.e2. Epub 2021 Dec 9.

Survival Outcomes of Patients With Breast Cancer Diagnosed Using Vacuum-Assisted Biopsy: A Nationwide Study From the Korean Breast Cancer Society

Bong Kyun Kim  1 , Sung Gwe Ahn  2 , Se Jeong Oh  3 , Hakyoung Kim  4 , Eunyoung Kang  5 , Yongsik Jung  6 , Kyung Do Byun  7 , Jina Lee  1 , Woo Young Sun  8 ; Korean Breast Cancer Society
Affiliations

Survival Outcomes of Patients With Breast Cancer Diagnosed Using Vacuum-Assisted Biopsy: A Nationwide Study From the Korean Breast Cancer Society

Bong Kyun Kim et al. J Breast Cancer. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

Purpose: Breast cancer is mainly diagnosed using core needle biopsy (CNB), although other biopsy methods, including vacuum-assisted biopsy (VAB), may also be used. We compared differences in clinical characteristics and prognoses of patients with breast cancer according to biopsy methods used for diagnosis.

Methods: A total of 98,457 patients who underwent various biopsy methods (CNB, fine-needle aspiration [FNA], VAB, and excisional biopsy) for diagnosing breast cancer were recruited. Using CNB as a reference, related clinicopathological factors and prognostic differences between biopsy methods were analyzed retrospectively using large-scale data from the Korean Breast Cancer Society Registration System. The associations between biopsy methods and clinicopathological factors were compared using multinomial logistic regression analysis, and the prognoses of patients undergoing the different biopsy methods, as breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) and overall survival (OS), were compared using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazard model.

Results: Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that unlike FNA, both VAB and excisional biopsy were significantly associated with tumor size, palpability, tumor stage, and histologic grade as relatively good prognostic factors compared to CNB. In particular, VAB showed lower odds ratios for these factors than excisional biopsy. In the univariate analysis, the prognosis of patients undergoing VAB was better than that of those undergoing CNB with respect to BCSS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.188, p < 0.001) and OS (HR, 0.359; p < 0.001). However, in the multivariate analysis, there were no significant prognostic differences from CNB in both BCSS and OS; differences were only evident for FNA.

Conclusion: In this study, we showed that the characteristics of breast cancer differed according to various biopsy methods. Although VAB is not a standard method for breast cancer diagnosis, it showed no prognostic differences to CNB.

Keywords: Biopsy; Breast; Carcinoma; Prognosis; Propensity Score.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Trends of various biopsy methods used in breast cancer diagnosis.
CNB = core needle biopsy; FNA = fine needle aspiration; VAB = vacuum-assisted biopsy.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Breast cancer-specific survival curves of various biopsy methods in (A) the entire and (B-D) propensity score-matched breast cancer cohorts. (B) CNB-FNA cohort; (C) CNB-VAB cohort; and (D) CNB-Excisional biopsy cohort.
CNB = core needle biopsy; FNA = fine needle aspiration; VAB = vacuum-assisted biopsy.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Overall survival curves of various biopsy methods in (A) the entire and (B-D) propensity score-matched breast cancer cohorts. (B) CNB-FNA cohort; (C) CNB-VAB cohort; and (D) CNB-Excisional biopsy cohort.
CNB = core needle biopsy; FNA = fine needle aspiration; VAB = vacuum-assisted biopsy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Mattiuzzi C, Lippi G. Current cancer epidemiology. J Epidemiol Glob Health. 2019;9:217–222. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bennett IC, Saboo A. The evolving role of vacuum assisted biopsy of the breast: a progression from fine-needle aspiration biopsy. World J Surg. 2019;43:1054–1061. - PubMed
    1. Gisvold JJ, Goellner JR, Grant CS, Donohue JH, Sykes MW, Karsell PR, et al. Breast biopsy: a comparative study of stereotaxically guided core and excisional techniques. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 1994;162:815–820. - PubMed
    1. Jackman RJ, Nowels KW, Shepard MJ, Finkelstein SI, Marzoni FA., Jr Stereotaxic large-core needle biopsy of 450 nonpalpable breast lesions with surgical correlation in lesions with cancer or atypical hyperplasia. Radiology. 1994;193:91–95. - PubMed
    1. Thomas PA, Vazquez MF, Waisman J. Comparison of fine-needle aspiration and frozen section of palpable mammary lesions. Mod Pathol. 1990;3:570–574. - PubMed