Clinical Study Of Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy In Patients With Stage I,II Breast Cancer

Objective Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) is routinely performed during surgery for breast cancer, but whether ALND could increase survival rate of early stage breast cancer patients remains controversial. Recently, replacing ALND with sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has became a hotspot in breast cancer research. This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of SLNB for stage I,II breast cancer. Methods In our study, there were 56 patients with primary breast cancer, clinically TNM stage I and II. Mapping procedures and SLNB were performed using methylene blue injected at the site of the primary breast cancer, followed by the axillary lymph node dissection. All of the SLN and ALN were evaluated pathologically(HE) after the operation. Results SLN were successfully detected in 50 of 56 patients. Success rates were 89.3%. The total number of detected SLN was 111. The number of SLN was 2.22 in every case averagely. The two cases of false negative were found in the group. The false negative rate was 12.5% without any false positive cases. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy rates of SLN to predict axillaries lymph node status were 87.5%, 100% and 96%, respectively. Both overall positive and negative predicative values were 100% and 97.7%. Conclusions Our study indicates that intraoprative lymphatic mapping using methylene blue and SLN can accurately predict the axillary lymph node status of the early stage breast cancer.