The Pros and Cons of Outpatient Breast Biopsy

• A review of the 130 breast biopsies performed on women during the past three years at the Martin Luther King, Jr, General Hospital showed that 90 were performed on outpatients and 40 on inpatients. Of the 90 outpatient procedures, 61 were under local anesthesia and 29 under general. Only three outpatient biopsy specimens were malignant and required subsequent patient admission to the hospital for mastectomy at an interval of 9 to 14 days. In all three, the axillary nodes were uninvolved. In two, no residual tumor was found in the mastectomy specimen. Whereas during this period patients with clinically suspected malignant neoplasms of the breast were admitted for biopsy, we are, considering all the advantages of outpatient biopsy and the accumulating evidence that the interval between biopsy and mastectomy is harmless, expanding the outpatient biopsy procedure to include tumors suspected of malignancy.

(Arch Surg 111:668-670, 1976)