An analysis of research biopsy core variability from over 5000 prospectively collected core samples

Abstract Factors correlated with biopsy tissue adequacy and the prevalence of within-biopsy variability were evaluated. Totally, 1149 research biopsies were performed on 686 patients from which 5090 cores were assessed. Biopsy cores were reviewed for malignant percentage (estimated percentage of cells in the core that were malignant) and malignant area (estimated area occupied by malignant cells). Linear mixed models and generalized linear mixed models were used for the analysis. A total of 641 (55.8%) biopsies contained a core with