Clinical guidelines for breast cancer screening assessment
Published June 2010 (Third Edition) | ISBN 978-1-84463-068-4
Available as PDF only
Since the guidelines were last revised in 2005 there have been many changes in practice. Today the optimal management of screen detected breast cancer requires pre-operative assessment with image guided needle biopsy to obtain a non-operative diagnosis. The new guidelines include recommendations for the use of vacuum assisted core biopsy (VACB), reflecting its increased use in tissue sampling. They also acknowledge that sentinel node biopsy of axillary lymph nodes has become established as an alternative to dissection for assessing the axilla, and that routine pre-operative assessment of axillary nodes is now expected to include ultrasound with needle sampling of morphologically abnormal nodes. Another significant change has been the integration of higher risk screening into the NHSBSP, requiring the inclusion of guidance on the assessment of women with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) detected breast abnormalities.