Yi M et al. – Removal of a maximum of 5 sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) allowed recovery of >99% of positive SLNs in breast cancer pts; tumor histology, pt race, and tumor size and location may influence this number Methods
Study of how many SLNs must be removed for accurate lymph node staging and which pt and tumor characteristics influence this number
Review of data for clinical tumor type, lymph node, metastasis (TNM) T1 through T3, N0, M0 breast cancer for pts who has lymphatic mapping, including 777 pts who had at least 1 SLN positive for cancer
Simple and multiple quantile regression analyses for association of pt and tumor characteristics with number of positive SLNs
Determination of baseline number of dissected SLNs to detect 99% of positive SLNs in all pts
Results
Mean number of SLNs removed in 777 lymph node+ pts: 2.9 (range, 1-13 SLNs)
>99% of positive SLNs identified in first 5 lymph nodes removed
On univariate analysis, tumor histology, pt race, tumor location, and tumor size significantly affected number of SLNs needed to be removed to identify 99% of all positive SLNs
On multivariate analysis, mixed ductal and lobular histology, Caucasian race, inner quadrant tumor location, and T1 tumor classification significantly increased this needed-for-removal number of SLNs
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