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Follow-up of cases with false-negative pathologic sentinel nodes in breast cancer

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Abstract

Background

The clinical practice of sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer patients started in 1999 in our hospital, to obviate unnecessary axillary lymph node dissection. The present study examines the pathological false-negative cases on intraoperative sentinel lymph node investigations and evaluates their outcomes.

Methods

The subjects consisted of 183 cases with clinically node-negative breast cancer who had undergone sentinel node biopsy. When the sentinel node was noted to contain malignant cells intraoperatively, a complete axillary lymph node dissection was performed subsequently. The patients with tumor free sentinel nodes underwent no further axillary surgery. The pathological false-negative cases in this series were defined as patients with lymph node involvement which was revealed postoperatively, despite negative intraoperative sentinel node examinations. After these surgeries and/or adjuvant therapies, interval clinical evaluations were performed for all patients.

Result

Intraoperative diagnosis of the sentinel node was 96.2% accurate compared with the results of permanent sections. There were six pathological false-negative cases, a false-negative rate of 4.1%, all of which had only micrometastasis. Five cases received systemic adjuvant therapy and have been disease-free, however, one patient who refused further therapy developed infraclavicular lymph node metastasis two years after surgery.

Conclusions

In the management of the patients with postoperatively revealed sentinel node micrometastasis, systemic adjuvant therapies might reduce local relapse without secondary lymph node dissection.

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Abbreviations

HE:

Hematoxylin and Eosin

IHC:

Immunohistochemistry

CMF:

Cyclophosphamide-Methotrexate-Fluorouracil therapy

TAM:

Tamoxifen

DCIS:

Ductal carcinomain situ

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Surgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-8-1 Inonana, Chuo-ku, 260-0856, Chiba, Japan

    Takeshi Nagashima, Hiroshi Yagata, Keiji Koda & Masaru Miyazaki

  2. Division of Diagnostic Pathology, Chiba University Hospital, Japan

    Takashi Nikaido & Fumio Horiuchi

Authors
  1. Takeshi Nagashima
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  2. Hiroshi Yagata
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  3. Takashi Nikaido
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  4. Fumio Horiuchi
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  5. Keiji Koda
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  6. Masaru Miyazaki
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Nagashima, T., Yagata, H., Nikaido, T. et al. Follow-up of cases with false-negative pathologic sentinel nodes in breast cancer. Breast Cancer 11, 175–179 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02968298

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02968298

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