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.

Prognostic value of Ki67 expression after short-term presurgical endocrine therapy for primary breast cancer.

Tumor expression of the proliferation antigen Ki67 is widely used to assess the prognosis of cancer patients. A change in the expression of Ki67 after short-term exposure of patients to therapeutic agents is frequently used as a pharmacodynamic marker of efficacy, particularly among breast cancer patients before undergoing surgery. To determine the clinical significance of the level of tumor cell proliferation during endocrine therapy for breast cancer, we measured the expression of Ki67 in tumor biopsy samples taken before and after 2 weeks of presurgical treatment with anastrozole or tamoxifen or the combination of anastrozole plus tamoxifen in 158 patients with hormone receptor-positive primary disease.

Neoadjuvant treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer with anastrozole, tamoxifen, or both in combination: the Immediate Preoperative Anastrozole, Tamoxifen, or Combined with Tamoxifen (IMPACT) multicenter double-blind randomized trial.

Purpose: The Immediate Preoperative Anastrozole, Tamoxifen, or Combined With Tamoxifen (IMPACT) trial was designed to test the hypothesis that the clinical and/or biologic effects of neoadjuvant tamoxifen compared with anastrozole and with the combination of tamoxifen and anastrozole before surgery in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER) -positive, invasive, nonmetastatic breast cancer might predict for outcome in the Arimidex, Tamoxifen Alone or in Combination (ATAC) adjuvant therapy trial.

Patients And Methods: Postmenopausal women with ER-positive, invasive, nonmetastatic, and operable or locally advanced potentially operable breast cancer were randomly assigned to neoadjuvant tamoxifen (20 mg daily), anastrozole (1 mg daily), or a combination of tamoxifen and anastrozole for 3 months. The tumor objective response (OR) was assessed by both caliper and ultrasound.