Axillary recurrence rate in breast cancer patients with negative sentinel lymph node biopsy or containing micrometastases and without further lymphadenectomy: a monocentric review of 8 years and 481 cases.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has almost completely replaced complete axillary lymph node dissection (CALND) as the first-line axillary procedure for clinically node-negative early stage breast cancer. We assessed the incidence of axillary relapse in patients with negative SLNB who had no additional CALND (group 1, n = 481) and in patients whose SLNB contained micrometastases and had no further CALND (group 2, n = 45). All patients were operated on between November 1997 and December 2005 and followed at the Jules Bordet Institute.

Eighteen months clinical experience with the GeneSearch breast lymph node assay.

Background: The accuracy of a molecular reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based assay for metastases detection in axillary sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) has recently been validated in our institution and adopted as an intraoperative test for breast cancer patient management.

Methods: Molecular assay performance was compared to standard postoperative histology in 253 consecutive patients with clinically node-negative T1 early breast cancer (<2 cm).

Results: The molecular assay correctly identified 26/27 macrometastases and 11/15 micrometastases.

Quantification of glands and fat in breast tissue: an experimental determination.

In breast surgery and anatomy, the composition of the breast itself could vary from patient to patient due to respective proportions of glandular and fatty tissue. There is no easy and reliable way to predict these proportions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the respective proportions of glands and fat in breasts.