Annals of surgical oncology
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Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) is frequently performed for node-positive (cN+) breast cancer patients. Combining positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) before-NST and the MARI (marking axillary lymph nodes with radioactive iodine seeds) procedure after neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NST) has the potential for avoiding unnecessary ALNDs. This report presents the results from implementation of this strategy. ⋯ Combining pre-NST axillary staging with PET/CT and post-NST staging with the MARI procedure resulted in an 82% reduction of ALNDs for cN + breast cancer patients.