RESUMO
Objective To compare the sensitivity of HE,immunohistochemistry (IHC) and RT-PCR in detection of breast cancer metastases in axillary lymph nodes.Methods Twenty female patients with newly diagnosed and clinically node-negative breast cancers underwent modified radical mastectomy, including a complete axillary lymph node dissection. The ages of the patients ranged from 31 years to 65 years, and the diagnosis of breast cancer was approved by pathological finding. Two hundred and thirty-nine axillary lymph nodes were found in these 20 patients. Metastases in axillary lymph nodes were explored by HE, cytokeratin 19 IHC and RT-PCR for cytokeratin 19 respectively. Results Seven(2.9%) lymph nodes were found to have metastatic cancers by HE in 3 patients,all nodes were found in level Ⅰ. Metastatic cancers were found in 13 (5.4%) nodes by IHC in 7 patients,11 nodes in level Ⅰ and 2 nodes in level Ⅱ; and 52(21.8%) nodes were found to contain tumor cells by RT-PCR in 14 patients,30 nodes in level Ⅰ and 22 nodes in level Ⅱ. All of 7 histologically(HE) positive nodes were found to contain tumor cells by IHC and RT-PCR. Among 232 histologically(HE) negative nodes,6(2.6%) nodes were found to contain tumor cells by IHC,and 45(19.4%) nodes were found to contain tumor cells by RT-PCR, all 6 IHC positive nodes showed the expected 460-base pair products on gel electrophoresis ( P