Background: Radioguided-surgery has been recently proposed in patients with clinically occult breast lesions. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of correctly locating and eradicating, by a single intralesional injection of a radiotracer, any breast lesion and, in the case of malignancy, to perform simultaneous sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy procedure.
Patients and methods: Sixty-three women with early breast lesions were enrolled: 42 were invasive carcinomas, 16 in situ ductal carcinomas (DCIS) and 5 fibroadenomas.
Results: Scintigraphic images clearly identified the lesions in all patients while SLN/s were evident in 88% of them. At surgery all the breast lesions were easily radiolocalized and eradicated with minimum surgical trauma and, for those patients with invasive carcinomas, the SLN technique was performed in 86% of them. No skip metastases were found.
Conclusion: A single intralesional administration of radiotracer is an easy and reliable procedure to simultaneously locate and remove both the non-palpable breast lesion and the SLN when primary malignancy was intraoperatively confirmed.