Is axillary lymph node dissection necessary in the routine management of breast cancer? Yes.

Axillary dissection for primary operable cancer follows the basic tenets of surgical oncology and achieves the stated goals. Local control is excellent, with failure rates of 0% to 2%. Long-term, disease-free survival is improved with axillary dissection. It is often stated that axillary dissection is not required for the smallest lesions, but the 15% risk of axillary disease with the T1A lesion suggests otherwise. Axillary sampling would not achieve the stated goals because of the high probability of retained, potentially resectable disease in the node-positive group. Axillary recurrence is associated with unacceptably high morbidity and mortality rates. Although the survival is similar in the three treatment groups of NSABP B-04, the inordinately high systemic failure rate with axillary recurrence would suggest that more aggressive local control could prevent many of these failures. After all, long-term survival free of disease is reported in many series, even in patients with multiple involved nodes. Axillary dissection also generates the most accurate prognostic variable on which further therapeutic interventions are predicated. At present, no other diagnostic or therapeutic approach achieves all these goals. The value of the axillary dissection is to provide accurate prognostic information, provide excellent local control, and improve the survival rate in the node-positive group. Perhaps in the future, a diagnostic test such as PET scanning or sentinel node mapping will identify patients with a clear axilla, who therefore do not require an axillary dissection. There has yet to be a primary operable carcinoma that benefits from preservation of potentially fully resectable disease.