Introduction to Mammotome, a minimally invasive procedure for benign breast masses

  In recent years, the incidence of benign and malignant breast tumors in women worldwide has shown a significant upward trend, and breast cancer has become the first malignant tumor in women in terms of morbidity and second in terms of mortality; women’s pursuit of beauty has also put forward higher requirements for breast surgery, and how to remove breast lesions while minimizing the impact on breast appearance has become the goal pursued by breast surgeons.  Early detection and early treatment of breast tumors is the key to improve the survival rate of patients, and tissue biopsy is an important means of confirmation. The commonly used clinical lesion biopsy methods are: open surgical biopsy, fine needle aspiration biopsy, coarse needle biopsy with hollow core needle, and McMurdo puncture biopsy.  Open surgical biopsy of clinical breast lesions has been the conventional method in the past, allowing complete excision of the mass and providing sufficient tissue volume for pathologic diagnosis. However, it can leave significant scarring and affect the aesthetics of the breast. Compared to surgical biopsy, fine-needle aspiration cytology is a safe and minimally invasive puncture method, but it only provides a cytologic diagnosis with a low positive rate and a certain rate of missed diagnoses. histological diagnosis. In the literature, the accuracy of CNB was reported to be similar to that of open surgery, which was further developed with the introduction of the Mammotome spinotomy system in 1994.  The Mammotome is a computer-controlled, vacuum-assisted, high-speed spinning device for minimally invasive treatment or biopsy of breast masses (tumors) under the guidance of ultrasound, molybdenum palladium or MRI. The system consists of a vacuum suction pump and a rotary cutter head. The rotary cutter head is similar in diameter to a hollow biopsy needle and consists of a trocar needle coupled with vacuum suction and has a special delivery device. Without exiting the jacket, the excised specimen is transported out of the body by the movement of the inner sleeve needle for pathological histological diagnosis. Relative to traditional surgery, it has the following features: 1. Precise localization and accurate excision of lesions: With the common use of high-frequency color Doppler ultrasound imaging technology, the detection of small breast masses is increasing, and the characterization and excision of small breast masses that cannot be found clinically has become a new difficulty in contemporary breast surgery. The traditional surgical approach is to surgically remove the lesion with the help of imaging localization, which sometimes results in missed or wrong incision or extensive excision. Compared with the traditional way of blind cutting by hand, its accuracy is high, and the tiny calcified foci of the breast that cannot be shown by B ultrasound can be removed under the monitoring of digital mammography.  2.Small incision and good cosmetic effect: The incidence of breast lumps, especially multiple lumps, is on the rise year by year, which is related to changes in eating habits, life rhythm and environment. The traditional open surgery has more incisions, obvious post-operative scars, and high incidence of breast shape changes, leading to delayed consultation for many young women. Compared to the 3-5 cm incision of traditional surgery, the incision of McMurdo surgery is only 3-5 mm without sutures and scars; moreover, multiple lesions on the same side of the breast can be removed through one incision (less than 3 and no more than 10 cm away). It avoids cutting the skin, subcutaneous tissue and normal glands, with little tissue damage and fast recovery, which is especially advantageous for deep breast masses and obese patients.  3.High-tech design ensures safety: unique hollow puncture needle design, only one puncture throughout the surgery, avoiding needle tract transfer caused by repeated multiple punctures for tumor cell shedding.  4, more accurate diagnosis: biopsy of suspicious lesions can obtain large and continuous specimens, and the sample volume taken in one puncture is 8 times of the traditional hollow thick needle, which reduces the false negative rate of pathology by 50% (malignant tumor cells are not detected and misdiagnosed as negative due to small and limited specimen volume); moreover, marker clips can be placed at the biopsy site to observe whether the lesion has malignant changes at any time.  5, low infection rate, more economical: conventional surgical incision application of electrocoagulation to stop bleeding is likely to cause fat liquefaction, surgical sutures as a foreign body retained in the incision, are prone to cause incision infection and poor healing; McMurdo surgery is less damage to normal tissues, no foreign body remains in the body, the risk of infection is significantly reduced, saving anti-infection costs.  6, fast and convenient surgery: short surgery time, light pain, can be operated in the outpatient clinic, a single swelling 10-30 minutes, after surgery can be free to move.  The McMurdo rotary excision system is suitable for benign breast masses less than 3.5 cm, fibroadenomas, nodules, asymmetric density, multifocal lesions and microcalcifications as well as breast masses of unknown pathological nature that require excisional biopsy.