[A decade of sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer: time for adaptations]

Abstract

A decade of sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer has taught us that old assumptions on contraindications (prior surgery, clinical positive axilla, multicentricity/multifocality, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy) should be discarded. Many clinical evaluation studies have shown that a new sentinel lymph node procedure after previous surgery of the breast and the axilla is feasible. It allows specialists to determine more precisely the biological activity of local recurrences and to re-conserve the axilla. In order to save as many axillas as possible, clinically suspect axillary lymph nodes should only be considered tumour positive if this is proven by biopsy. Also, in cases of multicentricity or multifocality a sentinel lymph node procedure should be performed. With the objective of conserving the axilla in as many patients as possible, a sentinel lymph node biopsy should be performed after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.