Researchers investigated the incidence of lymphedema on patients with breast cancer treated with TAC after axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), with or without radiotherapy, and its impact on quality of life for patients.
“Routine use of ALND should be abandoned.” That’s the conclusion based on 10-year survival data from the ACOSOG Z0011 randomized study comparing sentinel lymph node dissection alone to ALND in women with clinical T1-2 N0 M0 breast cancer and a positive sentinel node presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.
The accuracy of axillary staging and of pathologic evaluation of clinically node-positive breast cancer is improved by a new procedure, reducing the need for a more invasive procedure with debilitating complications.
Sentinel lymph node surgery was associated with a false-negative rate higher than a prespecified threshold in women who underwent chemotherapy after initially presenting with biopsy-proven breast cancer in movable axillary lymph nodes.
Removal of all axillary lymph nodes may be unnecessary in women undergoing breast-conserving therapy (partial mastectomy followed by whole-breast radiation), researchers have found.
Both axillary lymph node dissection and axillary radiotherapy provide excellent regional control for breast cancer patients with a positive sentinel node biopsy, according to a final study analysis.
MALND, en endoscopic technique to determine if breast cancer has spread to the adjoining lymph nodes, can reduce the complications associated with the conventional surgical approach to axillary lymph node dissection.
