SENTINEL LYMPH-NODE BIOPSY AND AXILLARY STAGING OF T1-T2 N0 BREAST-CANCER - A MULTICENTER STUDY

From December 1996 to May 1998. 84 T1-T2. N0 breast cancer patients we re recruited for a multicenter study on the lymphoscintigraphic search of the axillary sentinel lymph node (SLN). The SLN was searched intra operatively with a sodium iodide hand-held gamma-detecting probe (GDP) and excised before the standard axillary dissection was performed. Ly mphoscintigraphy was unsuccessful in 8 of 84 cases (9.5%). In 73 of 76 patients with positive lymphoscintigraphy, SLN were found and excised (96%). The SLN proved to be predictive of axillary status in 71 of 73 cases (97.2%). Thirty of 41 patients had axillary metastases: in 16 c ases, the SLN was the only site of the metastases (50%). In two cases, the SLN (reactive) did not match with the axillary status (2 of 63 re active SLN, 4.6% of ''skip'' metastases). Age, tumor diameter, and his tology seem to have Little importance in affecting the predictivity of SLN biopsy. These results demonstrate the applicability of the lympha tic mapping techniques to a multicenter setting. Semin. Surg. Oncol. 1 5:278-283, 1998. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.