Core needle biopsy of breast tumours: comparison of diagnostic performance between surgery and radiology services at a national cancer centre in Latin America

Introduction: Breast pathology is a very common reason for medical attention. Tissue diagnosis is usually obtained with core needle biopsy which could be performed by breast surgeons or interventional radiologists. Our aim was to assess the comparison of diagnostic performance between the two services. Methods: A retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out on patients who had breast pathology at Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas in 2019. Descriptive analyses, sensitivity and specificity were calculated using the R program version 4.2.3. Results: From 1,082 patients with breast tumours who underwent core needle biopsy (CNB) during 2019, 782 cases were included. Breast surgeons performed 462 CNBs and radiologists performed 320 CNBs. The 87.5% were palpable tumours and 525 breast carcinomas were identified in the final pathology. The diagnostic performance showed that the sensitivity and specificity were greater than 95% and 98%, respectively. The waiting time in both showed that >95% underwent a CNB before 2 months. The breast surgery service performed the majority of the biopsies in less than 1 week since the indication of the execution of the CNB compared to the radiology service (90% versus 36%). Conclusion: Both hospital services, breast surgery and radiology, are efficient in determining an accurate diagnosis using CNB. However, the breast surgery service performs CNB in a shorter time interval. Breast surgical oncologists are encouraged to perform CNB if there are understaffed radiology services to expedite the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer patients.