Sentinel Node Biopsy in Ductal Carcinoma in Situ: Is it Justifiable?

Background: For invasive breast cancer, sentinel node biopsy (SNB) is an acceptable alternative to axillary node clearance (ANC), although in the recent era, its role is under review. In ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the benefit of SNB is even less well defined. Despite this, guidelines still recommend that it is performed in selected cases of DCIS.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy with one-step nucleic acid assay relegates the need for preoperative ultrasound-guided biopsy staging of the axilla in patients with early stage breast cancer.

Avoiding axillary node clearance in patients with early stage breast cancer and low-burden node-positive axillary disease is an emerging practice. Informing the decision to adopt axillary conservation is examined by comparing routine preoperative axillary staging using ultrasound (AUS) ± AUS biopsy (AUSB) with intraoperative staging using sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) and a one-step nucleic acid cytokeratin-19 amplification assay (OSNA). A single-centre, retrospective cohort study of 1,315 consecutive new diagnoses of breast cancer in 1,306 patients was undertaken in the present study.