BACKGROUND: Some authors have stated the undesirability of axillary lymph node dissections for very small breast cancers, because so few of their patients have lymph node metastases (3% for T1a lesions in one series). METHODS: Of 6,308 breast cancer cases reviewed from three large urban hospitals 3,077 single primary cases with both axillary dissection and accurate tumor measurements were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: For T1a lesions we found axillary metastases to be four times higher (12%) than others have reported. For each tumor size there was a statistically significant difference in the percentage of axillary metastases. There was also a statistically significant difference in the breast cancer-specific survival of patients with different tumor sizes (n = 3,077) at the 3-year, 5-year, 7-year, and 10-year periods. CONCLUSION: These results justify axillary node dissections even for very small invasive cancers of the breast, particularly for invasive ductal histology.
BACKGROUND: Some authors have stated the undesirability of axillary lymph node dissections for very small breast cancers, because so few of their patients have lymph node metastases (3% for T1a lesions in one series). METHODS: Of 6,308 breast cancer cases reviewed from three large urban hospitals 3,077 single primary cases with both axillary dissection and accurate tumor measurements were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: For T1a lesions we found axillary metastases to be four times higher (12%) than others have reported. For each tumor size there was a statistically significant difference in the percentage of axillary metastases. There was also a statistically significant difference in the breast cancer-specific survival of patients with different tumor sizes (n = 3,077) at the 3-year, 5-year, 7-year, and 10-year periods. CONCLUSION: These results justify axillary node dissections even for very small invasive cancers of the breast, particularly for invasive ductal histology.
Authors: Adriana Gregory; Max Denis; Mahdi Bayat; Viksit Kumar; Bae Hyung Kim; Jeremy Webb; Rohit Nayak; Saba Adabi; Duane D Meixner; Eric C Polley; Robert T Fazzio; Mostafa Fatemi; Azra Alizad Journal: PLoS One Date: 2020-01-13 Impact factor: 3.240