Sentinel lymph node biopsy combined with preoperative ultrasonography in predicting axillary lymph node metastasis in early breast cancer

Objective To investigate the prediction of axillary lymph node metastasis in patients with early breast cancer by sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) combined with preoperative ultrasound. Methods From Jun 2014 to Oct 2018, 340 patients with early breast cancer were enrolled in the 5th Department of General Surgery of Second Hospital of Lanzhou University. 113 cases were grouped into ultrasound examing, 75 patients in the SLNB, and 152 patients in the SLNB combined with preoperative ultrasound.Using the results of axillary lymph node dissection as gold standard, the 3 groups were compared. Results The sensitivity of SLNB, ultrasound and SLNB combined with ultrasound for suspicious axillary lymph node biopsy were 90.1%, 85.7%, and 96.4%, respectively. The specificity was 84.0%, 76.3%, and 100%, and the accuracy was 91.6%, 83.0%, and 97.4%, respectively. The false negative rates were 8.6%, 14.3%, and 3.6%, respectively. Conclusion Preoperative ultrasound diagnosis of axillary lymph node status combined with sentinel lymph node biopsy can significantly improve the diagnosis rate of axillary lymph node metastasis in early breast cancer. Key words: Breast neoplasms; Sentinel lymph node biopsy; Ultrasonography