Table 5.
Guidelines for clinical practice. Procedure suggested for DBT-guided vacuum-assisted breast biopsy (VABB). DBT: digital breast tomosynthesis; CC: cranio-caudal projection; INR: international normalized ratio; ML: medio-lateral projection; LM: latero-medial projection; PT: prothrombin time; PTT: partial thromboplastin time.
| Guidelines for Clinical Practice | |
|---|---|
| Before VABB | |
| (1) | Clinical and familiar history (with particular attention to anticoagulant therapy and allergy to anesthetic drugs) |
| (2) | Evaluation of laboratory tests (PT, PTT, INR, platelet count) |
| (3) | DBT images evaluation (to choose the correct gauge and aperture of the needle) |
| VABB examination | |
| (4) | Full explanations of the procedure (written informed consent; is there psychological stress?) |
| (5) | DBT-VABB procedure a. positioning images b. post-anesthesia images c. pre-fire images d. post-fire images (optional if poor compliance) e. post-clip images (optional if poor compliance) |
| (6) | Bandage with compression |
| (7) | Patient monitoring (at least 10 min) |
| After VABB | |
| (8) | Post-procedure DBT images (LM/ML and CC projections) to evaluate the whole procedure and the correct clip position 2–3 days after the procedure |