Contralateral axillary node metastasis from recurrence after conservative breast cancer surgery.

Sentinel lymph node detection (SLND) with radiocolloid has become widely used for evaluation of nodal metastasis in primary breast cancer. However, the procedure for recurrent breast cancer is not well established. Contralateral axillary node metastasis is uncommon. We report 2 cases of contralateral axillary node metastasis with recurrent breast cancer. In the first case, contralateral node metastasis was found by SLND. In the other case without SLND, contralateral node metastasis developed after resection of local recurrence. FDG-avid contralateral node was pathologically diagnosed as metastasis. The SLND might be useful in patients with local recurrence after conservative breast cancer surgery.