Radical mastectomy versus radical mastectomy plus internal mammary dissection. Ten year results of an international cooperative trial in breast cancer.
A multicentric randomized trial evaluated the interest of internal mammary dissection on operable breast cancer patients. One thousand four hundred and fifty-three patients were included in the study and were followed for ten years. There is no difference in survival or in relapse-free survival between the two groups. There were significantly more local recurrences in the group without internal mammary dissection, but these recurrences occurred mainly on patients who developed metastases. A great difference between centers was observed in the number of nodes examined and there is therefore a difference in the prognostic value of the number of nodes invaded.
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008408:Mastectomy / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011897:Random Allocation