Skip to main content
  • Poster presentation
  • Open access
  • Published:

Assessment of the axilla in primary operable breast carcinoma

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to analyse assessment of the axilla in patients with primary operable breast cancer in a one-stop symptomatic breast unit.

Methods

A retrospective review of 229 patients diagnosed with new primary operable breast carcinoma over a 12-month period. All patients underwent axillary ultrasound (US). All cases with normal US had subsequent sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). All cases with abnormal US underwent fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). Findings were correlated with SLNB and axillary node clearance histology.

Results

A total of 128 patients had normal US and subsequent SLNB, this was positive in 29 (23%); 12 (40%) had micro metastases; primary tumour size was >2 cm in 22 (76%). Positive predictive value for US and FNAC was 97%. Negative predictive value was 75%. False positive and negative rates for US axilla are discussed with analysis of tumour subgroups and pattern of positive nodes.

Conclusion

The combination of US and FNAC is a powerful predictive tool of axillary disease [1]. Disappointingly false negative axillary US did not correlate solely with micro metastases. This may reflect a learning curve effect, and will be reassessed on follow-up data.

References

  1. Alvarez S, et al: Role of sonography in the diagnosis of axillary lymph node metastases in breast cancer: a systematic review. Am J Radiol. 2006, 186: 1342-1348.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Twomey, M., Hayes, S., Browne, T. et al. Assessment of the axilla in primary operable breast carcinoma. Breast Cancer Res 13 (Suppl 1), P47 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/bcr2999

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/bcr2999

Keywords