Accuracy of lymph nodes cell block preparation according to ultrasound features in preoperative staging of breast cancer.

To analyse the correlation between axillary ultrasonography (US), cell block (CBs) preparation, and histological diagnosis of lymph nodes from patients with primary breast cancer with the intention to assess the accuracy of cell block (CB) technique in preoperative staging. We tested a series of 26 patients who underwent axillary cell blocks from ultrasound guided fine-needle aspiration with histologic follow-up (axillary lymph nodes dissection). The specificity of axillary cell block was 100% vs. 14% for axillary ultrasound and the sensitivity was 73% for axillary cell block and 87% for axillary ultrasound. The positive and negative predictive values of cell block were respectively, 100 and 78%. Based on these results, we concluded that CB preparation was a feasible and specific technique to evaluate axillary lymph nodes status of patients with primary invasive breast cancer. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.