AXILLARY RELAPSE AFTER NEGATIVE SENTINEL BIOPSY IN PATIENTS WITH BREAST CANCER

OBJECTIVES: the primary objective was the determination of exclusive axillary relapse (AR) incidence in patients with breast cancer submitted to negative sentinel node biopsy (SNB); as secondary objectives were: determination of overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS) and relationship between immunophenotype profile, tumor measurement, histological and nuclear grade and AR. METHODOLOGY: 327 breast cancer patients were enrolled in a retrospcetive study between january 2006 and may 2014 in Hospital Sirio Libanes? Senology Service and Professor Alfredo Barros? Clinics, clincal stage I to III with negative SNB and not submitted to complete axillary node dissection; we excluded neoadjuvant and prophilatic surgeries setting. We determained AR, OS and DFS with Kaplan-Meier curves and correlated imunophenotype profiles, tumor measurement, histological and nuclear grades with uni and multivariate analyses. RESULTS: the AR?s incidence was 1,53%, with 57,02 years-old in media; 113 pre-menopausal patients , 210 menopausal and 4 not-informed; 230 were clinical stage 1, 96 stage II and 1 stage III with 79,4 months of follow-up in media (0-123,3 months).There wasn?t impact in OS; DFS was 80% in first 1,3 years, 40% in 2,7 years and 20% in 5,4 years for patients with AR; for patients without AR was 100% in first 5 years of follow up. The media of tumor?s mesurement was 1,83 cm and most common histopathology was invasive mammary carcinoma SOE, positive hormonal receptors, histological and nuclear grades 2 and submitted to adjuvant therapy. The univariate analyses demonstred that hormonal therapy determined less AR and multivariate analyses demonstred that adjuvant chemotherapy was correlated with higher AR. CONCLUSIONS: AR?s incidence was 1,53% with no impact in OS. The histological type, tumor measurement, histological and nuclear grades and immunophenotype?s tumor wasn?t correlated with AR; the hormonal therapy reduces the AR.