15-year Follow-up of Comparing Mastoscopic and Conventional Axillary Dissection in Breast Cancer: A Multicentres, Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Backgroud: Longer follow-up was necessary to testify the exact value of mastoscopic axillary lymph node dissection (MALND).Methods：From January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2005,1027 patients with operable breast cancer were randomly assigned to two groups: MALND and CALND. 996 eligible patients were enrolled. The end points are disease free survival and overall survival.Results：The final cohort of 996 patients was followed for an average of 184 months. The distribution of all events was fairly similar between two groups of patients. The incidence of local in-breast events did not differ in a significant manner between two cohorts. Similarly, the rate of distant metastases was not significantly different with 30.0% in MLND and 32.6% in CALND. And no significant difference was observed in other primary tumor between two groups (p=0.46). Patients who remain alive with no event comprise a total of 37.2% in MALND and 35.4% in CALND. Other primary cancers and deaths from other causes were distributed equally between two groups. The 15-year disease-free survival rates were41.1 percent for the MALND group and 39.6 percent for the CALND group (p=0.79). MALND was found to be not inferior for overall survival (P =0.54). The 15-year overall survival rates were 49.5 percentafter MALND and 51.2 percentafter CALND (p=0.86). Probability of overall survival was not significantly different between two groups.Conclusions：MALND does not increase unfavorable events, and also does not affect the long-term survival of patients. Therefore, MALND should be one of the preferred approaches for breast cancer surgery.