How accurate is the clinical component of triple assessment

Introduction: There are eight SBD Clinics (symptomatic breast clinics) across the Republic of Ireland (plus Letterkenny satellite), where over 40,000 new patients are referred by their General Practitioner (GP) each year. Same day triple assessment clinics (TAC) worked well when the TACs were small, but with the current volumes it is not possible to image all patients same day. The first component of the triple assessment is clinical (E score). The E score dictates what imaging is required (E1 normal, E2 benign, E3 likely benign, E4 suspicious, E5 clinically breast cancer) and triages patients into urgent /non urgent and this became even more important in the COVID crisis. Despite the importance of the E score, there is very little in the literature about its accuracy. The aim of this study was to look at how good the E score is at indicating/not indicating cancer in a large volume SBD clinic in Dublin.