Sentinel lymph node biopsy and axillary staging of T1–T2 N0 breast cancer: A multicenter study

✍ Scribed by Sergio Sandrucci; Antonio Mussa

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 94 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 8756-0437
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-2388(199812)15:4<278::aid-ssu18>3.0.co;2-9

✦ Synopsis

84 T1-T2 N0 breast cancer patients were recruited for a multicenter study on the lymphoscintigraphic search of the axillary sentinel lymph node (SLN). The SLN was searched intraoperatively with a sodium iodide hand-held gamma-detecting probe (GDP) and excised before the standard axillary dissection was performed. Lymphoscintigraphy was unsuccessful in 8 of 84 cases (9.5%). In 73 of 76 patients with positive lymphoscintigraphy, SLN were found and excised (96%). The SLN proved to be predictive of axillary status in 71of 73 cases (97.2%). Thirty of 41 patients had axillary metastases: in 16 cases, the SLN was the only site of the metastases (50%). In two cases, the SLN (reactive) did not match with the axillary status (2 of 63 reactive SLN, 4.6% of "skip" metastases). Age, tumor diameter, and histology seem to have little importance in affecting the predictivity of SLN biopsy. These results demonstrate the applicability of the lymphatic mapping techniques to a multicenter setting. Semin.