Advances In The Treatment Of Breast Cancer Patients With Supraclavicular Lymph Node Metastases

In 1988,the American Joint Commission on Cancer clinical stage breast cancer classified breast cancer with ipsilateral supraclavicular lymph node metastasis as stage IV.However,a large number of clinical studies have shown that the prognosis of the breast cancer patients with ipsilateral supraclavicular lymph node metastasis other than distant metastasis were better than those with distant metastases after the comprehensive treatment such as surgery,chemotherapy,endocrine therapy,and radiotherapy.Based on these findings,the stage of breast cancer patients with supraclavicular lymph node metastasis but without distant metastases in the sixth edition of the AJCC was changed from M1 to N3 c.Therefore,breast cancer with ipsilateral supraclavicular metastatic lymph nodes should be regarded as a local regional disease.Comprehensive treatment,including systemic and local treatments,may be good at local control and reducing of distant metastases.At present,the standard treatment for these patients is to perform modified radical mastectomy after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and then perform radiotherapy on the supraclavicular region.Some studies have reported that some patients may be obtain some benefits from the dissection of supraclavicular metastatic lymph nodes,especially for those with certain molecular subtype.