doi:10.4061/2011/504940 Review Article Issues Related to Sentinel Lymph Node Assessment in theManagement of Breast Cancer— What Are Relevant in Pathology Reports?

Copyright © 2011 Patricia Tai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Most cancer centers now perform sentinel node (SN) biopsies. The limited number of SNs sampled compared with an axillary dissection has allowed more comprehensive lymph node analysis resulting in increased detection of micrometastases. Many node-negative cases are now reclassified asmicrometastatic. Recent research on SN biopsy focuses on whether axillary dissection is always necessary when the SN is positive. Some subgroups of patients have a higher risk of more nodal metastases when completion axillary dissections were performed. This paper summarizes the different studies and examines what are the clinically relevant items to report on SN node pathology: volume or size of nodal metastasis, location within the node, extranodal extension, number of involved SN(s) and non-SN(s), total number of SN, and total number of nodes on axillary dissection, if performed. 1