Breast cancer and sentinel lymph node micrometastasis: indications for lymphadenectomy and literature review

An increasingly early diagnosis for discovering breast cancer, an improvement of surgical procedures with refining techniques for research and study of sentinel node, currently allow a more conservative surgical approach. Association with suitable chemo-radiotherapy allows a good control of breast disease.Our study, although modest, was carried out on 63 patients suffering from breast cancer, who underwent surgical treatment with assessment of sentinel lymph node.Aim of study was to establish the most correct strategy in the presence of isolated tumor cells (ITC) and/or micro-metastases of sentinel lymph node. Many studies have been carried out to find which was the most appropriate treatment, nevertheless, in the absence of univocal guidelines, we prefer to proceed to axillary dissection, though the topic is very debated and controversial. Following this strategy we obtained quite satisfactory results.