Axillary Recurrence Rate in Patients with Breast Cancer and Negative Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy

Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy is the standard method of evaluating and staging the axilla in the patients with early stage of the breast cancer. The aim of this study is to evaluate the axillary recurrence rate in patients with negative sentinel node biopsy. Methods: From 2006 to 2010, all the patients with a negative sentinel lymph node in their pathologic results were introduced in the study. All patients were invited to the breast cancer clinic for the follow up examination. The axillary ultrasonography was performed to determine the recurrence. Results: Among 150 female patients with negative sentinel lymph node, 52 were entered into the study and were followed up. The mean age was 45.78.58 years, and the mean primary tumor size was 2.362.40 cm. The primary tumor was located in the upper outer quadrant (90.4%) and the mean number of lymph nodes removed was 1.65. All patients underwent physical examination and axillary ultrasonography, which showed axillary lymph node in 3 patients of 31, 48 and, 62 years. Tumors in all 3 patients were located in the upper lateral part of the axilla and 3 lymph nodes were excised. Only 1 patient had histologically confirmed tumor extension into the axillary lymph node. Conclusions: Axillary recurrence after a long-term follow up of patients with negative sentinel lymph node is very rare and our study suggest that the SLN procedure is a gold standard method for the staging of breast cancer.