Role of frozen section in sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer in the era of the ACOSOG Z0011 and IBCSG 23-10 trials
BACKGROUND: Intraoperative frozen sections (FS) of sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) were evaluated to avoid the need for deferred axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in patients with early breast cancer (EBC). However, FS has low sensitivity for detecting micro-metastases (
METHODS:
This study evaluated 1453 patients with early breast cancer (EBC) who underwent SLN biopsy, FS and definitive evaluation. Causes of discrepancies between SLN biopsy and FS results and the need for further surgery were evaluated.
RESULTS: