Evaluation of Ultrasound and Intraoperative Histological Methods in the Diagnosis of Sentinel Lymph Node Metastases in Various Biological Subtypes of Breast Cancer

Abstract

Introduction. Determination of biological subtypes of breast cancer after clinical and instrumental examination methods is a routine practice to determine individualized treatment tactics, to clarify the prognosis of the disease, and to prevent overtreatment. Polymorphism of breast cancer manifestations is associated with heterogeneity of biological subtypes of breast tumors. Identification of metastatic axillary lymph nodes has clinical and prognostic significance.Objective — to assess the significance of ultrasound examination of axillary lymph nodes in patients with various biological subtypes of breast cancer in real clinical practice.Materials and methods. The study included 895 patients aged from 28.8 to 91.8 years with a verified diagnosis of breast cancer, observed at the Sverdlovsk Regional Oncology Center in 2022. All patients underwent clinical, ultrasound evaluation of axillary lymph nodes, histological verification of the tumor at the preoperative stage, as well as routine and intraoperative histological examination of the sentinel axillary lymph nodes. Statistical processing and data visualization were performed using R version 4.3.2 (build 2023-10-31).Results. In our sample of patients, TNR was less associated with metastasis to axillary LU compared with luminal cancers. There was no effect of different molecular subtypes on the preoperative ultrasound and intraoperative histologic examination parameters.Conclusions. Among our patients TNC was less associated with metastasis to axillary lymph nodes compared to luminal cancers. There was no effect of different molecular subtypes on the performance of ultrasound and intraoperative histological methods of examination.