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Subareolar blue dye only injection sentinel lymph node biopsy could reduce the numbers of standard axillary lymph node dissection in environments without access to nuclear medicine

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Abstract

Purpose

The gold standard of axillary sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in breast cancer is the combination of radioactive colloid and blue dye injection. Worldwide, numerous hospitals without access to radioactive tracers still perform a routine complete axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). We retrospectively analyzed the false negative rate and identification rate of SLNB with injection of blue dye in the absence of radioactive colloid and compared the subareolar (SA) and the peritumoral (PT) injection.

Patients and methods

Two hundred and fourteen patients with clinically node negative unifocal breast cancer of up to 3 cm in size who underwent SLNB followed by ALND were included. Patent Blue V was injected at the SA site in 120 patients or at the PT site in 94 patients.

Results

Thirty-seven (31%) patients in the SA group and 28 (29.8%) in the PT group were node-positive by ALND. The mean number of SLNs identified was 3.1 in the SA group and 1.6 in the PT group. The SLN identification rate was 91.7% for the SA group and 80.9% for the PT group (P = 0.017). The false negative rate was 3.6% in the SA group and 11.8% in the PT group (P = 0.032).

Conclusions

Our study shows an acceptable low false negative rate for the SA blue dye only injection and confirms the higher identification rate of SA versus PT localisation. This technique could have spared 67.5% (81 out of 120) of our patients the ALND and could replace ALND of early breast cancer patients in environments without access to nuclear medicine.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Wolfgang Michels, mathematician, for assistance in the statistical analysis and Dr. Mieczyslaw Gajda, Institute of Pathology, University of Jena, for his help in the evaluation of the histopathological data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Bachstrasse 18, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Andreas Kavallaris, Oumar Camara & Ingo B. Runnebaum

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  1. Andreas Kavallaris
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  2. Oumar Camara
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  3. Ingo B. Runnebaum
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Correspondence to Ingo B. Runnebaum.

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Authors Andreas Kavallaris and Oumar Camara contributed equally.

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Kavallaris, A., Camara, O. & Runnebaum, I.B. Subareolar blue dye only injection sentinel lymph node biopsy could reduce the numbers of standard axillary lymph node dissection in environments without access to nuclear medicine. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 134, 667–672 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-007-0333-7

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