Non-sentinel lymph node metastases in breast cancer patients with a positive sentinel lymph node: validation of five nomograms and development of a new predictive model.

Aims And Background: Discordance of intraoperative analysis with definitive histology of the sentinel lymph node in breast cancer leads to completion axillary lymph node dissection, which only in 35-50% shows additional nodal metastases. The aim of the study was to identify individual patient risk for non-sentinel lymph node metastases by validating several statistical methods present in the recent literature and by developing a new tool with the final goal of avoiding unnecessary completion axillary lymph node dissection.

Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 593 primary breast cancer patients.

Is complete axillary dissection necessary for all patients with positive findings on sentinel lymph node biopsy? Validation of a breast cancer nomogram for predicting the likelihood of a non-sentinel lymph node.

Aim And Background: Axillary dissection in patients positive for sentinel lymph nodes is currently under discussion in the literature, since approximately only 50% of such patients has metastases in the remaining lymph nodes. To identify patients at risk for non-sentinel lymph nodes metastases, a nomogram was developed by the Breast Service of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The aim of this study was to assess the nomogram's predictive accuracy in a population of Italian breast cancer patients in our hospital.

High-resolution, hand-held camera for sentinel-node detection.

Background: The imaging probe (IP) is a high-resolution (HR), 1-in(2) field-of-view hand-held gamma camera. We used it to detect breast cancer sentinel node (SN).

Patients And Methods: We divided 120 T1 breast cancer patients, who underwent Anger camera lymphoscintigraphy (ACL), in two subgroups of 60 patients who were age, body mass index, and cancer size matched: subgroup A (SA) and B (SB).