CORRELATION BETWEEN ULTRASONOGRAPHICALLY NEGATIVE AXILLARY LYMPH NODES AND SENTINEL LYMPH NODE BIOPSY RESULTS IN BREAST CANCER PATIENTS

Background The most crucial factors in overall prognosis and disease-free survival of breast cancer cases are status of axillary lymph nodes and tumor size. Substantial focus has recently been given for identifying less invasive techniques for diagnostic reasons. Ultrasound imaging is the most widely used complement to axillary surgical staging. Objectives A retrospective study was conducted in patients with breast cancer who had negative axillary lymph nodes on ultrasound, we try to correlate the results of pathological nodal status of SLNB which was done as part of the staging process. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional retrospective study has been conducted on registered patients with breast cancer to Shar Teaching Hospital in 2021-2022. Correlation between the negative axillary ultrasound (AUS) result and the pathological result of SLNB was analyzed. Variables studied included the tumor size and stage, histological subtype and pathological nodal stage. A total of 80 cases were reviewed, the aim was to detect the negative predictive value (NPV) of PAUS and its false negative rate. IBM SPSS Statistics Version 22 was used for the statistical analyses of the data. Results Eighty-two female breast cancer patients with negative AUS went through SLNB. The mean age of the participants was 50. Half of the patients (n=41) were premenopausal and half of them (n=41) were postmenopausal. The SLNB results were negative in 73 patients (NPV of PAUS was 89.0%) and were positive in 9 patients (False-negative rate of PAUS was 11.0%). Positive histopathological results were as follows; 2 cases (2.4%) had isolated tumor cell (pN0i+), 2 cases (2.4%) had micro-metastasis (pN1mic), and 5 cases (6.1%) had macro-metastasis (pN1a). Conclusion PAUS as a non-invasive modality for axillary lymph node staging has a high NPV in breast cancer patients.