Mammotome (®) and EnCor (®): comparison of two systems for stereotactic vacuum-assisted core biopsy in the characterisation of suspicious mammographic microcalcifications alone.

PURPOSE: The authors sought to compare the diagnostic performance of the Mammotome® and EnCor® vacuum-assisted breast biopsy (VABB) systems in the assessment of suspicious mammographic microcalcifications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between January 2011 and July 2012, a total of 169 VABB were performed by stereotactic guidance on a prone table. The Mammotome® 11G (S1) or EnCor® 10G (S2) probes were used randomly. Sampling time and the number of frustules collected were considered; sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic accuracy, positive and negative predictive value (PPV, NPV) of both procedures were evaluated, considering the final histological examination as reference (B1, B3, B5 lesions underwent surgical excision; B2 lesion were considered confirmed after a negative follow-up of at least 1 year). RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of patients according to the number of procedures (S1 82/169; S2 87/169), average age, BIRADS category (4a, b), and average size of the lesions. The two systems did not differ statistically for correlation with the final histology (S1 k = 0.94 ± 0.06; S2 k = 0.92 ± 0.08) and underestimation of B3 lesions or in situ (S1 4.5 %; S2 4.3 %). Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, diagnostic accuracy of S1 and S2 were also not statistically different. The systems differed only in sampling time (S1 80; S2 63 s), but not in total procedure time. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms the effectiveness of VABB in the assessment of microcalcifications and highlights the lack of significant differences between the two systems in terms of diagnostic performance.