Biopsy of axillary sentinel lymph nodes at organ saving surgeries of early breast cancer stages
Eighty nine women with early cancer (T1a,b,c) underwent the sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) followed breast saving at Latvian Oncology center from 2002 till 2005. The sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) was mapped by radiological and contrast methods. For 33 SLN negative patients standard axillary lymph nodes dissection (ALND) was performed and in 32 (96,9%) cases lymph nodes were clear. The only one metastatic failure of 13 lymph nodes was found at second level of ALND - false negative rate was 3,1%. In the group of 11 patients with positive SLN (12,4%) and followed ALND, nine of them were tumor-free. At the same time, metastasis was diagnosed twice (in 2 of 9 and 1 of 8 lymph nodes). ALND was avoided after negative SLNB for 45 patients. Main prognostic factors were considered at ALND planning time. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for SLNB as diagnostic test was statistically calculated and composed 91,6%, 100% and 96,8% accordingly.