Surgical technical details improving sentinel node identification in breast cancer

Between January and July 1996, 50 females underwent a sentinel axillary lymphadenectomy with intraoperative lymphatic mapping for breast cancer. The blue-stained lymph node was focused in 39 of 51 (76.5%) procedures. The mapped sentinel lymph node identified the axillary nodal status in 92.3% (36/39) of cases. Histologic metastasis in the sentinel node was focused in 41% (16/39) and in 50% (8/16) the blue stained sentinel node was solely invaded. The overall sensitivity of the procedure was 84% and the specificity 100%. The authors stress the importance of surgical details to improve the sentinel node identification and the development of this new minimally invasive alternative, especially in small-sized breast carcinomas.