Background
For patients with early-stage breast cancer, negative surgical margins at the first breast-conserving surgery minimize the need for reoperation and likely reduce postoperative anxiety. Preoperative skin mapping of the breast mass by ultrasonography (US) is one of the applied techniques to delineate optimal resection margins to insure safety without jeopardizing the cosmetic outcome. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of preoperative skin mapping of the breast mass and margins using US to achieve free surgical margins.
Patients and methods
The study was conducted at the General Surgery Department of Kasr Al-Aini Cairo University Hospital from December 2017 through July 2018. It included 30 female patients who presented with stages 1 and 2 breast cancer and planned to be candidates for breast-conserving surgery. They were divided into two equal groups: groups I and II. Preoperative skin mapping of the tumor margin by US was done in group I, while group II patients were kept as a control without US mapping.
Results
Group I patients had negative margins in 93.3% compared with 80% in group II. Positive margins necessitated re-excision.
Conclusion
Preoperative US-guided skin mapping of breast tumor margins is an easy, noninvasive technique that is not time consuming, and gives a better chance to the surgeon to excise the tumor safely with free surgical margins.