J Breast Cancer.  2012 Jun;15(2):211-217. 10.4048/jbc.2012.15.2.211.

Efficiency of Ultrasound and Ultrasound-Guided Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in Preoperative Assessment of Axillary Lymph Node Metastases in Breast Cancer

• Oz A
• Demirkazik FB
• Akpinar MG
• Soygur I
• Baykal A
• Onder SC
• Uner A

• KMID: 2242192
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4048/jbc.2012.15.2.211

Abstract

PURPOSE
We performed this study to detect preoperative axillary metastases with ultrasound (US)-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB), to eliminate the need for time-consuming and costly sentinel lymph node (SLN) scintigraphy and biopsy steps in the treatment of breast cancer patients, and in that of with suspicious US findings, and to evaluate the accuracy of preoperative US-guided FNAB for patients with suspicious lymph node metastases on US.
METHODS
Patients with a suspicious breast lump or histopathologically proven breast cancer underwent breast-axillary US. Increase in lymph node size, cortical thickening, non-hilar cortical flow, and hilar changes were evaluated with gray scale-color Doppler US. FNAB was performed if US results were suspicious for malignancy.
RESULTS
Thirty-eight axillary lymph nodes (ALN) underwent FNAB. ALN dissection, SLN scintigraphy, and biopsy steps were bypassed in 23 axillas with positive ALN FNAB (60.5%). The sensitivity of ALN FNAB was 88.46%; specificity and positive predictive value were 100%; and negative predictive value was 66.6% (inadequate cytology included; 76.7%, 100%, 100%, 53.3%, respectively). Asymmetrical cortical thickening, non-hilar cortical flow, and increase in hypoechogenity were only detected in metastatic nodes. Cortical thickening, and lymph node and breast mass size was higher in the metastatic group.
CONCLUSION
By performing FNAB on suspicious lymph nodes, the routine, high-cost SLN scintigraphy and intraoperative gamma probe steps may be skipped, and axilla dissection can be performed directly. This leads to the elimination of the need for SLN investigation in more than half of the patients. The assessment of ALN metastases with preoperative US-guided FNAB is a cost-effective method with high specificity, that eliminates the need for costly and time-consuming SLN scintigraphy and biopsy steps, and helps in preoperative staging.

Keyword

Axilla; Breast neoplasms; Fine needle aspiration biopsy; Lymph node; Metastasis

MeSH Terms

Axilla
Biopsy
Biopsy, Fine-Needle
Breast
Breast Neoplasms
Humans
Lymph Nodes
Neoplasm Metastasis
Nitriles
Pyrethrins
Sensitivity and Specificity
Nitriles
Pyrethrins

Figure

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  Figure 1 Ultrasound (US) evaluation, fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB), sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), and axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) algorithm, and number of lymph nodes. BI-RADS=Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System.

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