To explore the clinical significance and treatment regimen of sentinel lymph node(SLN) micrometastases and isolated tumor cell metastasis in breast cancer.

Ninety-seven breast cancer patients with sentinel lymph node micrometastases or isolated tumor cell metastasis from January 2013 to December 2015 were retrospectively studied. The patients were assigned to axillary lymph node dissection group (ALND, 41 cases) and non axillary lymph node dissection group(non-ALND, 56 cases) according to the final surgery mode to the axilla. Disease-free survival(DFS) and overall survival(OS) were compared between the two groups.

Neither clinico-pathological factors, such as age, tumor size, grade, ER/PR status, HER-2 gene expression, Ki-67 expression and the size of the SLN metastasis, nor the treatment, such as breast surgery, postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy were found statistically different between the two groups (P>0.05). There were 96 patients evaluable with a median follow up of 24 months. The DFS of the ALND and non-ALND group was 97.5% and 96.6% (P>0.05), and the OS was 100% and 98.2% (P>0.05) respectively with no difference between the two groups. There were 2 ispilateral axillary recurrence in the non-ALND group and non in the ALND group.

Axillary lymph node dissection may be omitted for the breast cancer patients with sentinel lymph node micrometastases and isolated tumor cell metastases. But the postoperative adjuvant systemic treatment should be emphasized.

Breast neoplasms; Sentinel lymph node biopsy; Micrometastases; Axillary lymph node dissection