title: Axillary surgery in breast cancer patients.
abstract: Surgeons have routinely removed ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes from women with breast cancer for over 100 years. The procedure provides important staging information, enhances regional control of the malignancy and may improve survival. As screening of breast cancer has increased, the mean size of newly diagnosed primary invasive breast cancers has steadily decreased and so has the number of women with lymph node metastases. Recognising that the therapeutic benefit of removing normal nodes may be low, alternatives to the routine level I/II axillary lymph node dissection have been sought. A decade ago sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was introduced. Because of its high accuracy and relatively low morbidity, this technique is now widely used to identify women with histologically involved nodes prior to the formal axillary node dissection. Specifically, SLNB has allowed surgeons to avoid a formal axillary lymph node biopsy in women with histologically uninvolved sentinel nodes, while identifying women with involved sentinel nodes who derive the most benefit from a completion axillary node dissection. Despite the increasing use of SLNB for initial management of the axilla in women with breast cancer, important questions remain regarding patient selection criteria and optimal surgical methods for performing the biopsy. This article discusses the evolution of axillary node surgery for women with breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Division of Breast Diseases, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Valencia School of Medicine, and Department of General Surgery, Valencia General Hospital, Valencia, Spain. amillets@amillets.com
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Millet
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Fuster
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lluch
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dirbas
mesh_terms: D001365:Axilla / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D021701:Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy