[Sentinel nodes identification efficacy prognostic criteria in breast cancer]

The sentinel node concept assumes that a malignancy that metastasizes by the lymphatic route will initially travel to one or a few lymph node(s). Although a tumor may disseminate to other nodes, it will remain in the sentinel node, and therefore the status of the entire basin is predicted by the sentinel node. The sentinel lymph node biopsy with total axillary dissection was performed on 99 patients. The identification rate was 69,7%, specificity 62,6%, and the false-negative rate was 7,1%. The impact of some prognostic factors on efficacy of visualization was also investigated. It was shown that the age of patients, stage of disease, localization of primary tumor, and method of injection of methylene blue were important prognostic factors for effective identification of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer patients.