Impact on clinical management of after-hours emergent or urgent breast ultrasonography in patients with clinically suspected breast abscesses

Tanya W. Moseley, Ashley Stanley, Wei Wei, Jay R. Parikh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Newly diagnosed breast abscesses are generally treated as a medical emergency that may necessitate immediate interventional treatment. At our institution, there is no in-house after-hours coverage for breast ultrasonography. We could find no peer-reviewed studies on the cost-effectiveness or clinical management impact of on-call ultrasound technologist coverage for imaging of breast abscesses. The purposes of this study were to determine the incidence of breast abscess in patients with clinical findings highly suggestive of abscess, identify clinical factors associated with breast abscess in such patients, and determine the impact of after-hours emergent or urgent breast ultrasonography on the clinical management of breast abscesses in both outpatients and inpatients. We retrospectively reviewed 100 after-hours breast ultrasound studies performed at our tertiary care center from 2011 to 2015 for evaluation of a suspected breast abscess. Only 26% of our patients with clinically suspected abscess ultimately had a confirmed abscess. Factors associated with breast abscess were a palpable abnormality and a history of breast surgery within the eight weeks before presentation. After-hours diagnosis of an abscess was associated with after-hours clinical intervention. Of the 74 patients in whom after-hours ultrasound imaging showed no evidence of abscess, only three patients underwent after-hours drainage. Our findings support overnight and weekend breast ultrasound coverage in large tertiary care centers.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number17
JournalDiagnostics
Volume8
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • After-hours imaging
  • Breast abscess
  • Breast ultrasound
  • Urgent or emergent imaging

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Clinical Biochemistry

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