What are the preoperative factors that can determine the presence of metastases in other axillary nodes in breast cancer when the sentinel node is positive?
Domènech, A.; Benítez, A.; Bajén, M.T.; Ricart, Y.; Rodríguez-Gasén, A.; Palacín, J.A.; Català, I.; Gil, M.; Pernas, S.; García, A.; Martín-Comín, J.
Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Official Publication of the Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine and the International Association of Radiopharmacology and Section of the Society Of. 53(4): 422-427
2009
ISSN/ISBN: 1824-4785 PMID: 19039302 Document Number: 633460
To determine whether preoperative factors, such as size of metastases in the sentinel lymph node (SLN), number of positive SLNs (1, >1), tumoral grade, lymphovascular invasion (LVI) and tumoral size can predict the presence of metastases in non-SLNs, when the SLN is positive. The study population was 1 146 breast cancer patients. Lymphadenectomy was performed in 150. Three groups of patients were established depending on the size of the metastases in SLNs: group A: <2 mm; group B: 2 < or =GC < or =5 mm; group C: > 5 mm. Either the chi(2) test or Fisher's test was performed to compare categorical variables, and a multivariate conditional logistic regression model for data sets was performed to identify the deterministic factors of metastases presence. Ten percent of group A, 28% of group B and 52% of group C presented non-SLN metastases. Patients with >1 positive-SLN presented significantly more non-SLN metastases than those with only one positive-SLN; 56% of patients with LVI presented non-SLN metastases versus 26% of those without LVI. The tumoral grade and size did not seem to have any influence on the number of patients with non-SLN metastases. The number of positive-SLNs and size of metastases were statistically associated with the presence of metastases. In this study population, the probability of finding non-SLN metastases was statistically related to the size of the SLN metastases and the number of positive-SLNs.