Comparison of the histopathological results of the radioguided percutaneous microbiopsies and the operative specimens of soft tissue tumors of limbs, trunk and retroperitoneum

Introduction Suspicious lesions of sarcoma require preoperative biopsies. If surgical biopsies remain the gold standard, radioguided percutaneous microbiopsies are gaining an increasing importance. The purpose of this study was to compare histopathological results of percutaneous biopsies of soft tissues, trunk and retroperitoneal tumors with the histopathological results of operative specimens. Methods This is a retrospective study including 84 patients treated in our institution. The concordance between the results of the microbiopsy and the operative specimen for the benign–malignant differentiation and the histological type was evaluated. The microbiopsy accuracy was calculated. The sensitivity and the specificity of the microbiopsies compared to the operative specimen were also evaluated for the benign–malignant differentiation. Results The concordance was 0.92 [0.79–1] for the benign–malignant differentiation, 0.97 [0.92–1] for the histological type. The accuracy of microbiopsies was therefore 96% (sensibility = 97.0%; specificity = 94.1%) for the benign–malignant detection and 97.8% for the histological type. Conclusion Percutaneous microbiopsies play an important part in the diagnosis of soft tissue tumors of the limbs, trunk and retroperitoneum, in particular as a replacement to more invasive surgical biopsies. This study evidences the increasing importance of the collaboration between radiologist, surgeon and pathologist in the diagnosis of sarcoma.