Abstract: A breast needle biopsy system and method use two-dimensional information about an abnormality from a scout view of the breast of a prone or upright patient but only one-dimensional information from each of one or more stereo views to control a needle guidance stage relative to an abnormality in the breast. An additional feature is to provide a live display of a least distance between calculated positions or loci of positions of a target in the breast to enable a health professional to make new selections of coordinates from the scout and/or stereo views in an effort to reduce the least distance, or to otherwise account for that distance. The live display of a least distance also improves existing systems that rely on two-dimensional information from each of two stereo images to calculate an abnormality's position in the breast.