ASSESSMENT OF LYMPHONOD IDENTIFICATION RATE PREVIOUSLY MARKED WITH 4% CARBON SUSPENSION IN PATIENTS WITH BREAST CANCER SUBJECT TO NEOADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY

BUDEL, L. R. (UFPR), BUDEL, VM M. (UFPR), SPAUTZ, C.C (UFPR), GASPERIN, P. (UFPR), LOUVEIRA, M.H. (UFPR), CAVALCANTI, T.C.S. (UFPR)

UFPRBACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer allows more conservative surgeries. In the breast approach, it is already consolidated. However, in the axilla, the difficulties in the identification and high false-negative rate of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) still persist. The use of markers for suspected axillary lymph nodes guided by ultrasonography (USG) before performing neoadjuvant chemotherapy is an alternative that has been studied to try to improve the identification of SLN and to reduce the false-negative rates. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the rate of identification of the lymph node marked with 4% carbon suspension prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and compare it with that of SLNPATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with T2-T4 N1-N2 breast cancer submitted to ultrasound-guide fine needle aspiration (FNA) by suspicious axillary lymph node, followed by injection in the same procedure with black carbon before neoadjuvant chemotherapy. In the surgery, were identified lymph nodes with black carbon, the SLN with patent blue and those where the black carbon and the patent blue marked the same lymph node.RESULTS: The identification rate of lymph node previously marked with black carbon was 96.8%. Only in two cases the black carbon were not Identifying the lymph node, which was located on patent blue. The patent blue lymph node was identified in 55 patients (87.3%)CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative tattooing with black carbon improved the identification rate and presented a higher accuracy than the SLN marked by patent blue in patients submitted to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, sentinel lymph node biopsy.