Effectiveness of peer support on health-related quality of life in recently diagnosed breast cancer patients: a randomized controlled trial.

Purpose: Breast cancer is the most common cancer of Finnish women. Peer support could be a way to help breast cancer patients to deal with the disease but studies on its effectiveness have produced conflicting results. The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to study the effectiveness of peer support on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of breast cancer patients.

The clinical value of parasternal sentinel node biopsy in breast cancer.

Background: Lymphoscintigraphy (LS) with sentinel node (SN) biopsy is proposed to provide a feasible method to complete lymphatic staging in breast cancer. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical value of parasternal SN biopsy.

Methods: A total of 984 consecutive patients with clinical stage T1/2N0 invasive breast cancer who underwent LS and SN biopsy were included in the study.

The feasibility of intraoperative diagnosis of sentinel lymph node metastases in breast cancer.

Background And Objectives: The aim of the study was to analyse in detail the feasibility of intraoperative assessment of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer.

Methods: Altogether 139 consecutive breast cancer patients with metastases in axillary sentinel nodes were included in a prospective study. A combination of imprint cytology and frozen section was used as the method of intraoperative diagnosis of sentinel node metastases.