The importance of pre-operative axillary ultra-sound and intra-operative sentinel lymph node frozen section analysis in patients with early breast cancer--a 3-year study.

Introduction: To ensure appropriate axillary surgery is performed at a single operation, we have sought to identify patients with involved nodes who might progress directly to axillary dissection.

Patients And Methods: We evaluated pre-operative ultrasound of the axilla and intra-operative frozen section of sentinel lymph nodes over a 3-year period. Patients with clinical early breast cancer underwent axillary ultrasound.