Sentinel node biopsy in early breast cancer at the Hospital Comarcal La Linea (Spain)

Our objective was to determine the identification and the percentage of false negatives in sentinel node biopsies in patients with early breast cancer at the Hospital La Línea (Spain), during the period between November 2007 and September 2010.

We collected 50 patients with early breast cancer, without clinical and ultrasonographic involvement of axillary nodes, from November 2007 to September 2010. We used the vital dye in the first 20 patients and the combined technique of vital dye and albumin labelled with technetium 99 in the other 30 patients. The site of injection for patients using blue dye was subdermal for palpable tumours and periareolar for non-palpable tumours. The technique of injection with the radioisotope for patients for palpable and most non-palpable tumours was the periareolar technique. We used albumin labelled with technetium 99. In seven patients with non-palpable tumours, we used the sentinel node occult lesion localisation (SNOLL) technique. The sentinel node biopsy was examined during surgery, with the frozen section examination and imprint as follows: the sentinel node was cut in three transversal sections along the axis and five frozen sections of each portion were done at a distance of 60 μm each; in total, 15-20 frozen sections and three imprints were done for each sentinel node. The axillary dissection was completed in the first 17 patients, and we performed total axillary dissection on the remaining patients if the sentinel node was positive for metastasis.

The sentinel nodes were identified in 49 of 50 patients (98%). The patient in whom we did not identify the sentinel node was a patient in the combined technique. The number of nodes identified in the patients with vital dye was one sentinel node, and with the combined technique, it was two sentinel nodes. The false-negative rate was 8% (four patients); the micrometastasis was the principal factor of the false-negative rate (p < 0.05). The cases of false negatives were present at the beginning of the study with the use of the blue dyes; this factor was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The tumour size, the vascular invasion, and the periganglionar adipose tissue invasion were statistically significant for the presentation of axillary metastasis (p < 0.05).

This study shows that the micrometastasis and the use of vital dye were the principal factors for the presentation of the false-negative rate. The size of the tumour, the vascular invasion, and the periganglionar adipose tissue invasion were statistically significant for the appearance of the axillary metastasis.