The feasibility of sentinel lymph node biopsy after axillary lymph node clinical complete response / 中国医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective The use of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in patients presenting with clinically positive lymph nodes remains controversial.This study is aimed to invest if it is feasible to perform SLNB after NAC in case that axillary lymph nodes turned to clinical negative.Methods A computer-aided search of the literature regarding SLNB in clinically nodepositive breast cancer treated with NAC was carried out to identify the false negative rate (FNR),sentinel lymph node identification rate (IR).Results 16 articles were used in the analysis yielding 1 579 patients.The pooled estimate of FNR,IR,sensitivity and overall accurancy was 13.6％,91％,85.7％,and 92.8％,respectively.Conclusions SLNB after NAC in lymph node-positive patients,whose axillary lymph node was clinical negative after NAC,results in reasonably IR,but FNR was still high to be accepted.More refined patient selection and optimal techniques are expected to lower the FNR in this patient population.