A new study shows using ultrasound to guide the surgical removal of tumors from women with palpable breast cancer is significantly better than the standard approach in ensuring that all cancerous tissue is removed while minimizing the removal of healthy tissue.

Dr. Krekel and her colleagues randomly assigned 124 patients with palpable early-stage breast cancer to either ultrasound-guided surgery or palpation-guided surgery. They found that only 3.3 percent of the margins in the ultrasound-guided surgery group contained cancer cells, compared with 16.4 percent in the palpation-guided surgery group. They also found that less healthy tissue was removed in the ultrasound-guided surgery group.

“If we get the same results in the United States, and these results can be incorporated into community practice, it will spare many women unnecessary re-excision surgery,” said Dr. Jo Anne Zujewski, head of Breast Cancer Therapeutics in NCI’s Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis.

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