[Axillary management in breast cancer: The French practice versus recommendations in the post-2011 era]

Today, according to St-Gallen and ASCO clinical guidelines, axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) should be avoided in patients who meet the ACOSOG Z011 criteria. In French guidelines, ALND is still recommended in case of macrometastasis in sentinel lymph node (SLN) and in case of micrometastasis without systemic treatment. We performed a survey of the French practices in the management of the axilla.

A questionnaire was sent to 454 breast surgeons between June 2014 and January 2015. Questionnaire included items about: indications of SLN biopsy, frequency of ALND in case of metastatic SLN and modality of radiotherapy in case of metastatic SLN without ALND.

A total of 169 surgeons (37%) answer the questionnaire. Twenty-one percent of surgeons avoid ALND in case of macrometastasis. Thirty-two percent do not perform extemporaneous examination of SLN. Only 8.4% of practionners performed a SLN biopsy after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Fourteen percent performed a SLN biopsy in case of multicentric tumors, while it is not recommended. In case of positive SLN without ALND completion, radiotherapy does not change in 34% while irradiation fields are expanded in 44%.

Significant unconformities are observed towards national recommendations. The divergence between French and international guidelines leads to heterogeneous surgical practices.