Feasibility of lymphoscintigraphy for sentinel node identification after neo-adjuvant therapy.

Aim: To assess the sentinel-node identification rate at lymphoscintigraphy and its technical feasibility after neo-adjuvant treatments.

Material Of Study: Between 2000 and 2013, 444 consecutive patients affected by primary locally advanced breast cancer were enrolled in this study. All individuals were candidate for neo-adjuvant treatments and for lymphoscintigraphy before surgery.

Results: The median age was 44 years at onset; almost one sentinel node was identified during lymphoscintigraphy in 430 cases. The detection rate at lymphoscintigraphy was 96.9% (95% CI, 94.8-98.1%). Considering the correlation between specific treatments and sentinel node identification rate, we verified that the detection rate did not vary significantly (p=0.53) according to the type of neo-adjuvant therapies administered to the patients.

Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that lymphoscintigraphy for sentinel node identification is a safe and feasible procedure after neo-adjuvant therapies, independently of treatment types.

Key Words: Breast Cancer, Neo-Adjuvant Treatment, Sentinel lymphnode biopsy, Lymphoscintigraphy.