TITLE:
Non-Axillary Sentinel Node in Breast Cancer. Are we Staging Correctly? A Multicenter Study
AUTHORS:
Javier Encinas Méndez, Joan Francesc Julián Ibáñez, Manel Cremades Pérez, Jordi Navinés, Josep Verge Schulte-Eversum, Manel Fraile López-Amor, Manel Armengol Carrasco
KEYWORDS:
Breast Neoplasms, Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy, Neoplasm Staging
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Breast Cancer Research,
Vol.3 No.4,
October
31,
2014
ABSTRACT: Purpose: The study of the sentinel
lymph node is the best technique to stage, have a prognosis and decide the
adequate treatment in breast cancer. The usual technique implies studding the
axillary lymph node. Our work tries to identify affected nodes in other regions
apart from the axilla and its possible impact in staging and treatment.
Methods: The sentinel lymph node technique was performed on 1660 patients
included in an observational and multicentric study designed to observe the
presence of metastatic cells in axillary and non-axillary lymph nodes. Results:
In 19% of the patients the sentinel lymph node was detected in non-axillary
regions. In these cases metastatic cells were more frequent which could suppose
a change in the stage and/or treatment. As protective factor against
non-axillary nodes involvement we found the localization of the cancer in
external quadrants while youth and injecting the tracer inside the tumor were
found to be risk factors. Conclusions: Detecting and studding non-axillary
lymph nodes in breast cancer leads to a more precise staging of the disease
which could imply a change in the optimal treatment.