Axillary Recurrence Rate Following Negative Sentinel Node Biopsy for Invasive Breast Cancer: Long-Term Follow-Up

Abstract

These data confirm that SLN biopsy is an effective and safe alternative to ALND for detection of nodal metastases in patients with invasive breast cancer and should be used as the standard tool for nodal staging.

Nine years of Experience with the Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy in a Single Italian Center: A Retrospective Analysis of 1,050 Cases

“…In addition, we performed a Medline search of the last 5 years of English-language articles about the prevalence of axillary recurrences after negative SLNB, and we found ten studies [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…The main advantages of SLNB are the low associated morbidity, which is closely related to the surgeon's experience, and its good accuracy in predicting the axillary nodal stage [2], which is reinforced by the low axillary recurrence rate after negative SLNB, which most studies report at lower than 1% [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Nevertheless, both the efficacy and the safety of the SLNB procedure have been widely investigated, with the result that its local control of disease is comparable with that of CALND [12,[16][17][18].…”

“…Nevertheless, both the efficacy and the safety of the SLNB procedure have been widely investigated, with the result that its local control of disease is comparable with that of CALND [12,[16][17][18].…”

Troubleshooting Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy in Breast Cancer Surgery

“…1-6 Prior studies confirm a high degree of variation in the technical proficiency of SLNB. 7-10 The importance of experience in the accuracy of sentinel node identification was illustrated in a recent multicenter trial. 11 After five training cases, the success rates for individual surgeons identifying a sentinel lymph node (SLN) ranged from 79 to 98 percent.…”

Optimal surgical treatment of breast cancer: Implications for local control and survival

“…The reliability of the tumor-free SN has been validated on the anatomic level (i.e., false negative rates under 10% when compared to simultaneous axillary dissection); and on the biologic level (i.e., axillary recurrence rate 0.3-1% on follow-up in women with tumor-free SNs [78,79]). In the large validation trial of the NSABP (B-32), false negative rates were highest for tumors in the lateral aspect of the breast, doubled when the diagnosis was made with an excisional biopsy (rather than a core needle biopsy), and rates were inversely related to the total number of sentinel LNs removed [80].…”