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Understanding how best to manage the axilla after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) in patients with operable, axillary node–positive breast cancer continues to be confusing, especially given the goal of avoiding unnecessary surgery. In some prior studies, false negative rates (FNRs) with sentinel lymph node dissection (SLND) have been higher than acceptable (<10%).
Investigators at MD Anderson Cancer Center established a prospective registry of breast cancer patients with biopsy-confirmed nodal metastases to determine if FNRs are reduced when post-NCT staging is based on evaluation of a node that was identified as affected and clipped at the time of diagnosis. They hypothesized that examining the clipped node would improve the nodal staging in…