GPs can treat benign breast lumps

Most women check for lumps and many are diagnosed as benign

Women with benign breast tumours can have them removed by GPs using a new technique developed in Cambridgeshire.

The technique already being trialled in America by Cambridge Design Partnership involves only a tiny 3mm cut for the insertion of a probe to freeze tissue.

Women can even be back at work on the same day the procedure is carried out.

Tumours are frozen by newly developed equipment and the need for surgery is eliminated along with scarring and recovery time, researchers claim.

Cambridge Design Partnership claim the procedure could put an end to the need for a hospital operation.

The most common cause of benign breast lumps is the over-development of tissue, a condition called fibro adenoma, which can eventually become uncomfortable.

Tiny incision

Dr Keith Turner, from Cambridge Design Partnership, said: "Many thousands of woman who have non-cancerous tumours will simply be able to pop to the doctors for a 15-minute procedure which involves having a thin probe inserted into the lump which then kills it off."

The treatment, developed in partnership with Sanarus Medical Inc based in California, involves freezing tumours to -20 to -40 degrees centigrade.

The frozen tumour dies and over time is reabsorbed by the body.

The procedure requires a tiny 3mm incision in the breast which is then covered by a normal plaster and no stitches are necessary.

Even large tumours take less than 30 minutes to treat while most take less than 15 minutes.