Management of the axilla in women with breast cancer

There remain several outstanding questions relating to management of the axilla in women with early stage breast cancer. This paper summarises the outcome of a national debate aimed at discussing certain key issues including a) whether axillary dissection has any survival advantage b) is an axillary staging procedure always necessary c) what is the optimum method of staging the axilla and d) whether an axillary dissection is always necessary in cases of a positive sentinel node. Electronic voting was undertaken at the beginning and end of the debate and results are compared and presented herein.