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Updated: Jul 14, 2026
Single-Port Robotic-assisted Transaxillary Breast-conserving Surgery: A Prospective, Single-arm, Non-randomized Phase IIa Clinical Trial
Published on: August 19, 2025
Tattooing breast cancers treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy
Marie-Christine Mathieu1, Laurence Bonhomme-Faivre, Roman Rouzier
1Department of Pathology, Institut Gustave-Roussy, rue Camille Desmoulins, 94800 Villejuif, France. mathieu@igr.fr
Background:
In breast carcinomas treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, intraoperative identification of residual tumors may be difficult. A well-tolerated, low-diffusion charcoal suspension has been designed to tattoo breast tumors. In this study, we investigated whether this tattooing technique is efficient for localizing the tumor after treatment with chemotherapy.
Methods:
In a series of 109 patients with large breast tumors, a 4% or 10% charcoal suspension was injected at the time of the initial biopsy before preoperative chemotherapy.
Results:
Tolerance was good. After three or four cycles of chemotherapy, 91 patients underwent conservative treatment, and the surgical specimen was examined intraoperatively. The charcoal was detected in 94% of the cases. The charcoal was seen in the nodule or at the periphery in the surgical specimen without any acute inflammatory reaction or diffusion.
Conclusions:
On the basis of these results, this micronized charcoal suspension at a defined granulometry and a concentration of 10% seems to be ideal for tattooing breast carcinomas over a period of 3 months in patients in whom neoadjuvant chemotherapy is planned.
