Predictive clinicopathological characteristics affecting sentinel lymph node metastasis in early breast cancer patients

Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is one of the standard procedures for breast cancer patients without clinically detected axillary lymph nodes. However, 60-78% of patients suffered from unnecessary invasive axilla surgery. Our objective is to investigate predictive clinicopathological factors affecting sentinel lymph node (SLN) status in early breast cancer patients. Methods: There were 324 patients who were diagnosed as invasive breast cancer and took SLNB in Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH). They were categorized into the two groups according to axillary lymph node status, and their clinicopathological characteristics were compared by univariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: Univariate analysis showed that tumor size, pT stage, lympho-vascular invasion (LVI), estrogen (ER) status, hormone receptor (HR) status, and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) were associated with SLN metastasis. However, pT stage, histological grade and TNBC were independent predictive factors for SLN involvement by multivariate logistic regression analysis. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that pT stage and histological grade provided positive, and TNBC provided negative prediction about SLN metastasis in early stage breast cancer patients with clinically negative axillary lymph nodes.