[The role of stereotactic radiography in nonpalpable breast lesions. The authors' own experience].

Stereotaxis is a well-known technique allowing fine-needle aspiration cytology and preoperative localization of the nonpalpable breast lesions seen on mammograms, permitting early diagnosis and easy surgical ablation. The authors report on their experience (126 cases) with stereotactic aspiration (85 cases) and preoperative localization (41 cases) of nonpalpable lesions. The technique allowed to hit the lesion in 115/126 cases (91.3%). Cytology showed 24 cases of cancer and 38 benign lesions (3 of them were false negatives); in 8 cases cytology was suspect (7 cancers and 1 sclerosing adenosis) and in 15 inadequate (17.7%). Sensitivity and specificity were confirmed by histology or follow-up (6 months + 6 months); sensitivity was 91.2% and specificity 97.2% (excluding inadequate cases). The 41 needle localizers were useful to detect 37 malignancies. Fifty-one lesions were biopsied: 37 of them were malignant and 14 benign (benign/malignant ratio = 0.38/1).