Retrospective analysis of sentinel lymph node biopsy using methylene blue dye for early breast cancer / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

BACKGROUND@#Methylene blue is the most commonly used tracer for sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy (SLNB) in China. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of clinical application of SLNB using methylene blue dye (MBD) for early breast cancer and the prognosis of patients with different SLN and non-SLN statuses.@*METHODS@#We retrospectively analyzed the clinicopathological data of patients with early breast cancer treated at the Peking University First Hospital between 2013 and 2018. We calculated the SLN identification rate (IR) in SLNB with MBD and the false-negative rate (FNR), and analyzed the prognosis of patients with different SLN and non-SLN statuses using Kaplan-Meier curves.@*RESULTS@#Between January 2013 and December 2018, 1603 patients with early breast cancer underwent SLNB with MBD. The SLN IR was 95.8% (1536/1603). Two SLNs (median) were detected per patient. There were significant differences in FNR between patients with SLN micrometastasis and macrometastasis (19.0% vs. 4.5%, χ2 = 12.771, P < 0.001). Chi-square test showed that there were significant differences in SLN successful detection rates among patients with different vascular tumor embolism status (96.3% vs. 90.8%, χ2 = 9.013, P = 0.003) and tumor (T) stages (96.6% vs. 94.1%, χ2 = 5.189, P = 0.023). Multivariate analysis showed that vascular tumor embolism was the only independent factor for SLN successful detection (odds ratio: 0.440, 95% confidence interval: 0.224-0.862, P = 0.017). Survival analysis showed a significant difference in disease-free survival (DFS) between patients with non-SLN metastasis and patients without non-SLN metastasis (P = 0.006).@*CONCLUSION@#Our single-center data show that, as a commonly used tracer in SLNB in China, MBD has an acceptable SLN IR and a low FNR in frozen sections. This finding is consistent with reports of dual tracer-guided SLNB. Positive SLNs with non-SLN metastasis are associated with DFS.

A retrospective study of pathological margin evaluation in breast-conserving surgery specimens of patients with early breast cancer / 中国实用外科杂志

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical value of pathological evaluation of incision margin of breast-conserving operation specimens for early breast cancer. METHODS: The clinical data of early breast cancer patients undergone breast-conserving surgery in the Breast Disease Center of the Peking University First Hospital from January 1,2013 to December 31,2017 were analyzed retrospectively. The consistency of intraoperative frozen pathology with postoperative paraffin pathology and the relationship between pathological margin and prognosis were discussed. RESULTS: A total of474 breast-conserving cases were included in the study. The overall recurrence and metastasis rate was 3.4%; the local recurrence rate(LRR)was 1.5%; the 5-year disease-free survival rate(DFS)was 95.7%,and the 5-year overall survival rate(OS)was 96.8%. The coincidence rate of paraffin pathology and intraoperative frozen pathology in evaluating the breast-conserving margin was 100%. There was no significant difference in local recurrence rate between positive and negative first margin(χ~2=1.371,P=0.242). There was no significant difference in disease-free survival rate and overall survival rate among patients with negative margin width(χ~2=0.123,P=0.726;χ~2=0.077,P=0.781),and no significant difference in local recurrence rate(χ~2=1.808,P=0.613). CONCLUSION: Rapid frozen pathological examination is safe and reliable in evaluating the incision margin of breast-conserving surgery. On the premise of the negative incision margin,there is no significant difference in disease-free survival rate and local recurrence rate among different incision margin widths.

A Retrospective Survival Analysis of Anatomic and Prognostic Stage Group Based on the American Joint Committee on Cancer 8th Edition Cancer Staging Manual in Luminal B Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2-negative Breast Cancer / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Current understanding of tumor biology suggests that breast cancer is a group of diseases with different intrinsic molecular subtypes. Anatomic staging system alone is insufficient to provide future outcome information. The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) expert panel updated the 8th edition of the staging manual with prognostic stage groups by incorporating biomarkers into the anatomic stage groups. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the data from our center in China using the anatomic and prognostic staging system based on the AJCC 8th edition staging manual.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>We reviewed the data from January 2008 to December 2014 for cases with Luminal B Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer in our center. All cases were restaged using the AJCC 8th edition anatomic and prognostic staging system. The Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to compare the survival differences between different subgroups. SPSS software version 19.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used for the statistical analyses.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>This study consisted of 796 patients with Luminal B HER-negative breast cancer. The 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) of 769 Stage I-III patients was 89.7%, and the 5-year overall survival (OS) of all 796 patients was 91.7%. Both 5-year DFS and 5-year OS were significantly different in the different anatomic and prognostic stage groups. There were 372 cases (46.7%) assigned to a different group. The prognostic Stage II and III patients restaged from anatomic Stage III had significant differences in 5-year DFS (χ2 = 11.319, P= 0.001) and 5-year OS (χ2 = 5.225, P= 0.022). In addition, cases restaged as prognostic Stage I, II, or III from the anatomic Stage II group had statistically significant differences in 5-year DFS (χ2 = 6.510, P= 0.039) but no significant differences in 5-year OS (χ2 = 5.087, P= 0.079). However, the restaged prognostic Stage I and II cases from anatomic Stage I had no statistically significant differences in either 5-year DFS (χ2 = 0.440, P= 0.507) or 5-year OS (χ2 = 1.530, P= 0.216).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The prognostic staging system proposed in the AJCC 8th edition refines the anatomic stage group in Luminal B HER2-negative breast cancer and will lead to a more personalized approach to breast cancer treatment.</p>

Factors related with pathological complete response of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in primary breast cancer / 中华外科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To assess the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and the factors related with pathological complete response (pCR) of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The data of 159 primary breast cancer patients who had received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and operation with complete MRI data and histopathology evaluation in this center from January 2009 to December 2011 was analyzed. All the patients were female, aging from 28 to 70 years with a median of 50 years. The neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens were based on anthracyclines or taxanes, and trastuzumab was used in almost half of the human epidermalgrowth factor receptor 2 positive patients. The response of neoadjuvant chemotherapy was comprehensively evaluated based on RECIST 1.1 and Miller-Payne grading system. SPSS 18.0 was used for statistical analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Among the 159 patients, 10.1% patients had achieved complete response according to the MRI evaluation, and the rate of partial response, stable disease, and progressive disease was 65.4%, 24.5%, and 0 respectively. According to the Miller-Payne grading system, 27.7% patients had pathological response evaluated as G5 (pCR), and the response evaluated as G4, G3, G2, and G1 were 28.3%, 18.9%, 12.6%, and 12.6% respectively. The higher histological grade were correlated with pCR statistically (Z = -2.820, P = 0.005). Meanwhile strong expression of Ki67 (Z = -1.989, P = 0.047) and p53 (Z = -2.457, P = 0.014) were related to pCR in a significant statistically way.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The response of neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be predicted. The histological grade and the immunohistochemistry results of Ki67 and p53 are related to pCR of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for primary breast cancer. Basal-like breast cancer had a higher pCR statistically.</p>