Purpose: To provide a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies investigating sentinel lymph node biopsy after neoadjuvant systemic therapy in pathologically confirmed node positive breast cancer patients.
Methods: Pubmed and Embase databases were searched until June 19th, 2015. All abstracts were read and data extraction was performed by two independent readers. A random-effects model was used to pool the proportion for identification rate, false-negative rate (FNR) and axillary pCR with 95% confidence intervals. Subgroup analyses affirmed potential confounders for identification rate and FNR.
Results: A total of 997 abstracts were identified and eventually eight studies were included. Pooled estimates were 92.3% (90.8-93.7%) for identification rate, 15.1% (12.7-17.6%) for FNR and 36.8% (34.2-39.5%) for axillary pCR. After subgroup analysis, FNR is significantly worse if one sentinel node was removed compared to two or more sentinel nodes (23.9% versus 10.4%, p = 0.026) and if studies contained clinically nodal stage 1-3, compared to studies with clinically nodal stage 1-2 patients (21.4 versus 13.1%, p = 0.049). Other factors, including single tracer mapping and the definition of axillary pCR, were not significantly different.
Conclusion: Based on current evidence it seems not justified to omit further axillary treatment in every clinically node positive breast cancer patients with a negative sentinel lymph node biopsy after neoadjuvant systemic therapy.
Keywords: Breast cancer; Clinically node positive patients; Neoadjuvant systemic therapy; Sentinel lymph node biopsy.
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