[Medical complications and medical legal pitfalls concerning interventional radiological procedures on the breast].

Radiological interventional procedures on the breast are still work in progress. Initiation of percutaneous macrobiopsy techniques such as stereotactic or ultrasound-guided core biopsy, mammotomy or Abbi Site-Select procedures allows the physician to expect a high accuracy for the diagnosis of non palpable suspected breast abnormalities, thus eliminating the need for at least half of the surgical biopsies done for this indication. Furthermore, the absence of any lasting post-procedural changes on follow-up mammography contrasts with the scarring associated with traditional surgical open biopsy and obviates confusion in subsequent mammographic interpretation. Recently, development of percutaneous radiofrequency or cryotherapy ablation of breast cancer has been related. All these cost-saving procedures lead to medical and potential medical legal pitfalls that will be discussed.