• Masato Hino, Muneaki Sano, Nobuaki Sato, and Keiichi Homma.
• Department of Surgery, Niigata Cancer Center Hospital, Niigata, Japan.
• Surg. Today. 2008 Jan 1; 38 (7): 585-91.

PurposeThis study was undertaken to assess the feasibility of performing a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for a patient with operable breast cancer after undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC).MethodBetween January 2002 and December 2003, women with primary breast cancer who had a breast tumor measuring larger than 3 cm in unilateral diameter were eligible for NAC. All patients who had completed NAC underwent lymphatic mapping with labeled (99m)Tc phytate on the day before surgery. Sentinel lymph node biopsy followed by a full axillary lymph node (AXLN) dissection (ALND) was performed in all patients. Sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) were sent for a frozen-section examination.ResultsThe rate of SLN identification was 71%. Both the sensitivity and negative predictive value of SLNB were 100%. The false negative rate was 0%. When candidates for SLNB were restricted to patients with a breast tumor measuring less than 3 cm and clinically negative nodes after NAC, the rate of SLN identification increased to 93% from 71% while still maintaining the 0% false negative rate.ConclusionSentinel lymph node biopsy after NAC is therefore considered to be a feasible and accurate method to predict the AXLN status in patients who have a breast tumor measuring less than 3 cm in unilateral diameter and a clinically negative AXLN status at the time of surgery after NAC.

32 keywords...

hide…