Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy for Breast Cancer: Our Technique and Future Directions in Lymph Node Staging

Breast cancer remains a major cause of cancer death for women in the United States. Accurate cancer staging, especially of the axillary lymph nodes, is essential for predicting the prognosis of patients and for determining the appropriate multimodality treatment strategy. Historically, the traditional approach for staging the lymphatic metastasis in breast cancer has been Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). However, as the understanding of the lymphatic drainage of the breast has improved, the Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy has replaced ALND as the gold standard for lymph node staging in breast cancer. Multiple studies have demonstrated the benefits of SLN biopsy compared to ALND in terms of morbidity, while maintaining the clinical ability to appropriately stage patients, but without any loss in therapeutic impact. In this review, we discuss the historical development of SLN biopsy, describe our technique in detail, and discuss the possible future directions of the lymphatic staging of breast cancer.