The importance of surgery and accurate axillary staging for survival in breast cancer

Does the introduction of sentinel node biopsy increase the number of node positive patients with early breast cancer? A population based study form the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group

“…A very plausible explanation for the finding in county C is that the quality of axillary surgery or the pathological examinations of the lymph nodes improved from the first to the last period since the number of patients with more than 15 nodes examined increased from 33 to 66%. Increasing the number of examined lymph nodes from axillary dissections have been found to increase the degree of nodal involvement and this is a likely explanation for the finding in county C [33,34].…”

Organized nation-wide implementation of sentinel lymph node biopsy in Denmark

“…During the years preceding the DBCG approval of the SNLB study several reports [10,11] demonstrated better survival after treatment in centers specialized in breast cancer surgery. Recommendations had advocated that breast cancer surgery should be centralized in departments with more than 150 operations per year, and that operations should be performed by surgeons dedicated to and specialized in breast cancer treatment [12Á14].…”

Validity and Representativity in the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group

“…The DBCG register has in previous studies been considered a population-based register with a completeness rate of 90 Á/ 95% of all incident cases in patients younger than age 70 years (6,7). A recent study linking the Danish National Cancer Registry and the DBCG register concluded that the DBCG can not replace the National Cancer Registry as a reliable source for incident breast cancer cases, as 18% were missing in the DBCG register (8).…”