This is the Scientific Surgery Archive, which contains all randomized clinical trials in surgery that have been identified by searching the top 50 English language medical journal issues since January 1998. Compiled by Jonothan J. Earnshaw, former Editor-in-Chief, BJS

Multicentre validation study of sentinel node biopsy for staging in breast cancer. BJS 2005; 92: 1221-1224.

Published: 30th June 2005

Authors: L. Bergkvist, J. Frisell

Background

The aim of this study was to validate sentinel node biopsy for axillary staging after the initial learning phase, and to analyse factors associated with false‐negative biopsies.

Method

Some 675 patients, who had standard sentinel node biopsy followed by level I and II axillary clearance in one of 20 hospitals in Sweden and were operated on by 36 different surgeons, were recruited prospectively.

Results

The overall detection rate was 94·5 per cent. It varied between surgeons but was not influenced by the number of operations per surgeon. Moreover, it was lower among older patients. The overall false‐negative rate was 7·7 per cent. This rate was not affected by patient age, tumour histological type or Elston grade, but was increased in patients with multifocal tumours. Some 21 per cent of patients with a multifocal tumour diagnosed on postoperative histopathological analysis had a false‐negative biopsy compared with 5·6 per cent of those with unifocal tumours (P = 0·004).

Conclusion

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