Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy Alone Has No Adverse Impact on the Survival of Patients with Breast Cancer

Abstract:  We do not yet know the results from multicenter randomized trials comparing survival after sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) alone and axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). Therefore, in this study, the prognostic significance of the type of axillary surgery is analyzed in combination with other known prognostic factors in patients with breast cancer. In a series of 1325 consecutive patients with unilateral breast cancer who underwent SLNB between January 1999 and June 2004 at a single institution, 884 underwent SLNB alone following an intraoperative negative histologic investigation and 441 underwent ALND. Disease‐free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed to correlate with clinicopathologic features and treatment methods using both univariate and multivariate analyses Cox proportional hazard regression models. With a median follow‐up period of 31 months, 29 (3.3%) and 37 (8.4%) patients relapsed after SLNB alone and ALND, respectively. Tumor size (Tis, T1–2 versus T3–4), histologic nodal involvement (negative versus positive), nuclear grade (NG) (1, 2 versus 3), lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI) (absent, weak versus intense), estrogen receptor (ER) status (positive versus negative), type of axillary surgery (SLNB alone versus ALND), type of breast surgery (partial versus total mastectomy), and radiation therapy (yes versus no) significantly correlated with DFS by univariate analysis, demonstrating better DFS in the former category than the latter for each variable. The multivariate analysis revealed that NG, LVI, ER status, and radiation therapy significantly correlated with DFS, and ER and histologic nodal involvement correlated with OS. As the type of axillary surgery had no impact on the prognosis of patients with breast cancer, a SLNB alone is safe as determined by a negative histologic investigation.