Preoperative lymphoscintigraphy and tumor histologic grade are associated with surgical detection of the sentinel lymph node

Objective: To study which variables involved in the process of selective sentinel node biopsy (SSNB) influence the intraoperative detection of the sentinel lymph node. Material and methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study in 210 patients (mean age, 54 years) diagnosed with breast cancer who underwent SSNB. We recorded clinical, radiological, radioisotope administration, surgical, and histological data as well as follow-up data. We did adescriptive analysis of the data and an associative analysis using multivariable regression. Results: Deep injection alone was the most common route of radioisotope administration (72.7%). Most lesions were palpable (57.1%), presented as nodules (67.1%), measured less than 2 cm in diameter (64.8%), were located in the upper outer quadrant (49.1%), were ductalcarcinomas (85.7%), were accompanied by infiltration (66.2%), and had a histologic grade ofdifferentiation of ii (44.8%). Preoperative scintigraphy detected the sentinel node in 97.6% of cases and 95.7% were detected during the operation. One axillary relapse was observed. Inthe associative study, the variables "preoperative lymphoscintigraphy" and "histologic grade ofdifferentiation of the tumor" were significantly associated with the detection of the sentinellymph node during the operation. Conclusion: The probability of not detecting the sentinel lymph node during the surgicalintervention is higher in patients with high histologic grade tumors or in patients in whompreoperative lymphoscintigraphy failed to detect the sentinel node. (C) 2012 SERAM. Published by Elsevier Espana, S. L. U. All rights reserved.