Clinical study of axillary conservative surgery by sentonel lymph node biopsy in early stage breast cancer

Objective:To evaluate the possibility of axillary conservative surgery by sentonel lymph node biopsy(SLNB) in early stage breast cancer patients with negative SLNs received SLNB only.Methods:Sentonel lymph nodel(SLN) was detected with the combination of patent blue-v and 99mTc-Sulphur colloid.The patients with negative SLNs received SLNB only,while those did agreed.The patients with negative SLNs who did not agree with substiring axillary lymph node dissection(ALND) and the patients with positive SLNs received ALND.Results:The clinical study was carried from March 2003 to March 2006.Among the total,135 patients belonged to clinical stage T1-2N0M0 were submitted by SLNB.While 39 of 91 patients with negative SLNs received SLNB only.While 42 of 44 patients with positive SLNs received ALND,and 2 patients with micrometastasis received SLNB plus radiotherapy to the axilla.The accuracy rate and false negative rate of the SLNB cases were 97.8% and 6.8%.All the patients were followed up.With a median follow-up of 43 months(24-72 months),the complications of the SLNB cases were significantly fewer than the ALND cases(P0.05).Conclusion:Axillary conservative surgery is an appropriate method in short period and postoperative complications in early stage breast cancer patients with negative SLNs.