Localization for Breast Surgery: The Next Generation

- Preoperative localization of nonpalpable breast lesions using image-guided wire placement has been a standard of breast imaging, diagnosis, and treatment since its development in the 1970s. With this technique, coordinated, same-day wire placement by the radiologist and surgery are required, which can lead to significant inefficiencies in workflow. Other disadvantages of wire localization (WL) include limitations in surgical incision and dissection route and protruding wires that can be both bothersome for the patient and have risk of displacement. - To outline several recently developed techniques that could replace traditional WL and eliminate its disadvantages. The first developed was radioactive seed localization (RSL) using I-125, a technique adopted by many institutions during the last few years. The challenge to this method, however, is the strict nuclear regulatory requirements, which can be a significant burden and limitation. The disadvantages of WL and RSL have provided incentive for the development of other types of preoperative localization procedures. Two of these are recently US Food and Drug Administration-cleared, nonradioactive, non-wire location technologies emerging as alternatives to WL and RSL; SAVI SCOUT (Cianna Medical Inc, Aliso Viejo, California), which uses infrared light and a microimpulse radar reflector, and Magseed (Endomagnetics Inc, Austin, Texas), which uses a magnetic seed for localization. - We review the published literature on non-wire location technologies for breast tissue resection. - Non-wire location techniques are beneficial, allowing image-guided placement before the day of surgery and resulting in improved workflows. These techniques also eliminate bothersome protruding wires, risk of dislodging, and allow the incision site to be independent from the localization site.