Local anaesthesia and breast biopsies: How to make them more tolerable and uneventful

Summary Local anaesthetics work by blocking nociceptive impulses from reaching the cerebral cortex. They are used in breast imaging, where percutaneous biopsies and needle localizations require the use of local anaesthesia. In daily practice, to improve the tolerance of image-guided percutaneous procedures, sodium bicarbonate and/or epinephrin is combined with the local anaesthetic. This article summarises the mechanism of action of local anaesthetics and highlights the interest of the combination of these molecules with sodium bicarbonate