Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 20, 2026
Optimization of Breast Biopsy and Mastectomy Sample Collection Procedures for Biobanking, Personalized Medicine, and Research Applications
Published on: September 2, 2025
Should all breast cancers be diagnosed by needle biopsy?
Donald R Lannin1, Teresa Ponn, Liva Andrejeva
1Department of Surgery, Yale University School of Medicine, PO Box 208062, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. Donald.lannin@yale.edu
Background:
Although much data support the National Quality Forum recommendation that breast cancers should be diagnosed by needle biopsy before surgical resection, the exclusion criteria for those that may not be suitable have yet to be defined.
Methods:
We reviewed all patients treated over the past 3 years at the Yale Breast Center to determine the percentage of patients not diagnosed by needle biopsy, and why.
Results:
Reasons for the 17% of 630 patients who were not diagnosed by needle biopsy were as follows: inability to cooperate (1%); small or superficial lesion less than 1 cm that technically was easier to excise in the office (4%); bloody discharge without clinical or mammographic mass (1%); lesion adjacent to implant (.5%); a mammographic lesion that was too posterior, too superficial, or too faint to be performed stereotactically (5%); or patient preference (5%).
Conclusions:
Needle biopsy is the preferred method of diagnosis in most cases, but there are valid reasons why all breast cancers will not be diagnosed in this fashion.
