Axillary lymph node treatment in breast cancer: an update

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNbx) is the standard of care for staging of breast cancer. Patients with a negative sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNbx) do not undergo axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) or regional nodal irradiation (RNI). However, if a patient has a positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNbx), then axillary lymph nodal dissection (ALND) is the standard treatment. Recent studies, notably the Z-0011 and MA-20 trials, have demonstrated that omission of axillary lymph nodal dissection (ALND) did not decrease overall survival. MA-20 demonstrated that inclusion of regional nodal irradiation (RNI) in addition to axillary lymph nodal dissection (ALND) did increase survival when compared to axillary lymph nodal dissection (ALND) without regional nodal irradiation (RNI). Ongoing studies are randomizing patients to axillary lymph nodal dissection (ALND) or regional nodal irradiation (RNI) after a positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNbx).