stereotactic breast core needle biopsy in a tertiary breast center of tehran university of medical sciences

background: the purpose of this study was to evaluate the results of stereotactic breast core needle biopsy in a tertiary breast center of tehran university of medical sciences. methods: patients who were candidates for mammography-guided stereotactic breast core biopsy from march 2011 to december 2013 were included in this study. stereotactic biopsy was performed by a dedicated prone hologic mammography unit employing an automatic biopsy device with a 14-gauge needle. patients with malignant or premalignant biopsy results were followed up with surgical pathology reports and patients with benign core biopsy findings were followed up with mammograms. results: among the 150 patients who were included in the final analyses, 30 had malignant findings on stereotactic biopsy and 10 patients had a premalignant pathology result on stereotactic biopsy. the remaining 110 patients had benign results on histopathology; however, in 30 patients, wire localization and surgery of the same area were performed due to either discordant mammography-pathology findings or clinical suspicion of malignancy and in two of them, advancing pathologic grade was witnessed. a total of 80 patients with benign histopathologic results had follow-up mammograms and the follow-up period was between 12 months to 3 years. the sensitivity and specificity of stereotactic breast core biopsy in this study were 94% and 96%, respectively. conclusions: stereotactic breast core needle biopsy is an effective and safe method in evaluation of suspicious mammography-detected lesions but caution should be warranted when taking results into account, especially in mammography-pathology discordance and in patients with premalignant pathology reports.