Axillary procedures

Abstract

No discussion of breast surgery is complete without review of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). It has become routine for early breast cancer in most hospitals. Most surgeons consider SLNB the new standard of care, identifying equivalent false negative rates in axillary dissection. Indications for this technique of assessing the axilla continue to expand. The ability to identify a sentinel lymph node (SLN) varies from 94 to 100% in recent trials. The accuracy of this technique is estimated between 97 and 100%. False negative rates are reported between 0 and 15% [1]. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2010.