False Negative Rate of Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy (Slnb) in Breast Cancer Patients After Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Publisher



Omranipour R^{1, 2} ; Ghaffari Hamedani SMM³ ; Alipour S^{1, 4} ; Hesamiazar S¹ ; Eslami B¹ Show Affiliations
Source: Archives of Breast Cancer Published:2024

Abstract

Background: Managing the axilla in patients with node-positive breast cancer who converted to node-negative after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is a challenging issue. We aimed to analyze the false negative rate (FNR) of SLNB after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in this group of patients. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we reviewed the results of SLNB and ALND in 368 breast cancer patients who underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy from 2015 to 2019. The study included patients with pathologically proven axillary lymph nodes undergoing NAC. We collected the data from the Breast Diseases Research Center of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Results: The average age of the patients was 46.58±10.91. Of all the patients, 205 (55.7%) had positive SLN in the histologic analysis after surgery, while 163 (44.3%) had negative results. The study also revealed that the FNR of SLNB was 9.8% (n=16). Our results showed that SLN had 86.55% sensitivity and 100% specificity in detecting the involved nodes. Furthermore, after multivariable analysis, we observed that the higher number of ALND dissections was associated with a higher FNR OR=1.21, 95% CI: 1.01-1.45); while the higher number of SLN excisions was linked with a lower FNR (OR=0.42; 95% CI: 0.18-0.97). Conclusion: After NAC in breast cancer patients with positive lymph nodes, SLNB is feasible with a low FNR; the latter is correlated with the number of nodes removed during the procedure. © 2024 Farname Scientific Publishing Inc.. All rights reserved.