Clip Marker Placement in Primary Lesions of Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Neoadjuvant Therapy

Breast cancer patients whose carcinomas have an aggressive tumor biology which implies the need for chemotherapy are increasingly being treated with NST. As a standard procedure, clip placement of the suspicious lesion is performed after ultrasound-guided core biopsy or mammography-guided vacuum biopsy. Clipping is necessary to enable the clear identification of the sonographically suspicious area of the breast and safe surgical removal of the remaining tumor tissue (if any) during a later surgery, even following a good response under NST. The placement of a marker (clip) is particularly important for the precise localization of the original tumor bed in patients with pCR.

There are a number of commercially available markers (clips) which are indicated for intramammary marking of a lesion and which differ in terms of shape and material. Difficulties may arise in placing the clip in the tumor or the tumor center. In addition, the clip can dislocate from the initial location and/or the clip might not be visualized during response monitoring. Evaluations of the ultrasound-visible clip made of nitinol investigated in this study showed very good results regarding marker dislocation and visibility within 7 days after inital placement.The clip, which immediately unfolds into a 3-dimensional spherical structure after insertion into the tissue, could be detected by both sonography and mammography in all 50 cases after the intervention; however, long-term data data at follow-up controls during and after NST are not available so far.

According to current German guidelines, imaging-assisted wire marking is recommended without restriction before breast conserving surgery for non-palpable lesions. The clip is considered the target lesion for wire marking, which can be done under sonographic or stereotactic control. If the clip is reliably visible on ultrasound (even in patients with pCR), the stereotactic control of wire marking can be omitted. Therefore, the ability to visualize a clip in breast ultrasonography is of great importance.

The present multicenter study aims to evaluate the sonographic detection rate of the intramammary Tumark® Vision clips after NST in clinical routine and the proportion of cases in which the clip cannot be detected, and thus the rate of mammography-guided wire markings.

Inclusion criteria

• female patient aged ≥ 18 years
• written informed consent
• patient's consent to NST
• suspicious unilateral or bilateral intramammary foci that can be safely identified by ultrasound
• no evidence of distant metastasis (complete staging does not have to be present at inclusion)
• indication for breast conserving therapy
• no prior clip placement in the confirmed intramammary carcinoma
• patient is able to undergo NST treatment (even if the indication based on tumor biology is not yet available)
• high compliance and high number of planned relevant surgical interventions in participating study center
• patient can understand the scope of this prospective registry study

Exclusion criteria

• allergy to titanium and/or nickel
• pregnancy
• ipsilateral relapse (when NST: no exclusion criterion)
• prior extensive breast surgery (starting from quadrant resection)
• inflammatory breast cancer
• extramammary breast cancer
• multicentric or multifocal breast cancer
• patient is not operable
• patient is already undergoing adjuvant/neoadjuvant therapy
• inability to understand the purpose of the clinical trial or to comply with study procedures