HCG Hospital Bengaluru embraces VABB technology for improved breast cancer diagnosis

With VABB technology, the biopsy for these small lesions can now be performed under the mammographic, stereotactic and ultrasound guidance

HealthCare Global Enterprises (HCG) has introduced Vacuum Assisted Breast Biopsy (VABB), for a more accurate diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer in Bengaluru. This technology reportedly ensures very high accuracy and scar free detection of a breast cancer tumor.

As per IARC (WHO) breast cancer constituted 22.2 per cent of cancer in 2008 which increased to 27 per cent in 2012. Of the 300,000 cancer cases treated/managed by oncologists in India, more than 10 per cent are breast cancers out of which one third are new cases. With women generally presenting late for diagnosis, more than 60 per cent of patients present at the locally advanced stages of breast cancer and the mortality associated with it is as high as 35 per cent.

However, with increasing awareness, more women are going for regular breast screenings & mammography and if found at a high risk of the disease they are reaching out to the new state of the art hospitals across major Indian cities which now have the latest and the most accurate modalities of testing & imaging.

Dr Sudhakar, an integral part the Radiology Department at the HCG Hospital, Bengaluru, shares his views on this new platform acquired by his institute, “As we have digital mammography and advanced ultrasound scan, small lesions are possible to be detected well before it actually presents. It was difficult to access to such small lesion through traditional core biopsy, however with our new vacuum core biopsy system, makes it easy to extract large volume of tissue, which also helps us diagnose hormone receptor and conduct genomic studies. We can excise fibroadenomas in young age with symptoms or family history. This day-care procedure is safe, cost effective and scarless.”

These new technologies apparently use very sensitive techniques and can pick up abnormalities as small as 3-5 mm in the breast; however the issue in India was the unavailability of means of sampling these cases found at early stages of the diseases and then to understand their nature as cancerous or non-cancerous.

With VABB technology, the biopsy for these small lesions can now be performed under the mammographic, stereotactic and ultrasound guidance. Precise guidance helps the doctor to site the abnormality more accurately and the procedure requires only a local anesthesia, reducing the whole procedure to a comfortable 45 minutes. The procedure involves a single needle insertion with vacuum pressure under the guidance of chosen imaging modality.

Without withdrawing and reinserting the needle, multiple samples can be collected, which are larger in size than a conventional needle biopsy procedure and larger samples eventually increase the accuracy of the diagnosis and better treatment protocols.