• Tuba Laiq, Zubia Masood, Hiba Siddiqui, Maliha Javed, and M Jawaid A Mallick.
• Tuba Laiq, MBBS Post graduate trainee, Department of Oncology, Dr. Ziauddin Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan.
• Pak J Med Sci. 2025 Jan 1; 41 (1): 9610096-100.

Background & ObjectiveDetermination of axillary lymph-node status plays a pivotal role in decision making for breast cancer treatment. Biopsy is the current standard of care but hold risks of complications as well. We aimed to find out the correlation of sonographic features of lymph node and histo-pathological findings, to predict axillary lymph-node metastasis in breast cancer patients.MethodThis retrospective observational study included 176 breast cancer patients at a private tertiary care hospital from January 2019 to December 2023. The study calculated sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of ultrasound (US) in identifying ALN metastasis. Also, binary logistic regression analysis was used to demonstrate the association between suspicious findings on axillary US with pathology report. Patients who never had undergone axillary surgery or with insufficient data, were excluded from our study.ResultsIn our study Axillary US was found to be 84.2% sensitive, 48.1% specific, and 67.6% accurate in identifying nodal metastases. In this context, ALN metastases was strongly and independently correlated with cortical thickness > 3 mm and the absence of a fatty hilum (P <.05).ConclusionUltrasound was found to be highly sensitive but not specific in predicting metastatic lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer.Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.

6 keywords...

hide…