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Background: Histopathology is the only accepted method to measure and stage the breast tumor size. However, there is a need to find another method to measure and stage the tumor size when the pathological assessment is not available. Micro-computed tomography. (micro-CT) has the ability to measure tumor in three dimensions in an intact lumpectomy specimen. In this study, we aimed to determine the accuracy of micro-CT to measure and stage the primary tumor size in breast lumpectomy specimens, as compared to the histopathology. Materials and Methods: Seventy-two women who underwent lumpectomy surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Surgery from June 2011 to September 2011, and from August 2013 to December 2013 participated in this study. The lumpectomy specimens were scanned using micro-CT followed by routine pathological processing. The maximum dimension of the invasive breast tumor was obtained from the micro-CT image and was compared to the corresponding pathology report for each subject. Results: The invasive tumor size measurement by micro-CT was underestimated in 24. cases. (33%), overestimated in 37. cases. (51%), and matched it exactly in 11. cases. (15%) compared to the histopathology measurement for all the cases. However, micro-CT T.stage classification differed from histopathology in only 11. (15.2%) with 6. cases. (8.3%) classified as a higher stage by micro-CT, and 5. cases. (6.9%) classified as lower compared to histopathology. In addition, micro-CT demonstrated a statically significant strong agreement (κ =0.6, P < 0.05) with pathological tumor size and staging for invasive ductal carcinoma. (IDC) group. In contrast, there was no agreement. (κ = .2, P = 0.67) between micro-CT and pathology in estimating and staging tumor size for invasive lobular carcinoma. (ILC) group. This could be explained by a small sample size. (7) for ILC group. Conclusions: Micro-CT is a promising modality for measuring and staging the IDC.

Abstract Background Thyroid drains following thyroid surgery are routinely used despite minimal supportive evidence. Our aim in this study is to determine the impact of routine open drainage of the thyroid bed postoperatively on ultrasound-determined fluid accumulation at 24 hours. Methods We conducted a prospective randomised clinical trial on patients undergoing thyroid surgery. Patients were randomly assigned to a drain group (n = 49) or a no-drain group (n = 44) immediately prior to wound closure. Patients underwent a neck ultrasound on day 1 and day 2 postoperatively. After surgery, we evaluated visual analogue scale pain scores, postoperative analgesic requirements, self-reported scar satisfaction at 6 weeks and complications. Results There was significantly less mean fluid accumulated in the drain group on both day 1, 16.4 versus 25.1 ml (P-value = 0.005), and day 2, 18.4 versus 25.7 ml (P-value = 0.026), following surgery. We found no significant differences between the groups with regard to length of stay, scar satisfaction, visual analogue scale pain score and analgesic requirements. There were four versus one wound infections in the drain versus no-drain groups. This finding was not statistically significant (P = 0.154). No life-threatening bleeds occurred in either group. Conclusions Fluid accumulation after thyroid surgery was significantly lessened by drainage. However, this study did not show any clinical benefit associated with this finding in the nonemergent setting. Drains themselves showed a trend indicating that they may augment infection rates. The results of this study suggest that the frequency of acute life-threatening bleeds remains extremely low following abandoning drains. We advocate abandoning routine use of thyroid drains. Trial registration ISRCTN94715414