Selective Surgical Localization of Axillary Lymph Nodes Containing Metastases in Patients With Breast Cancer

Abstract

Axillary lymph nodes marked with a clip can be localized and selectively removed to accomplish targeted axillary dissection, which is technically possible after chemotherapy and is easily performed with other axillary surgery, such as SLN dissection. The ability to add selective removal of the clip-containing lymph nodes to SLN dissection may identify patients for limited nodal surgery after chemotherapy with increased accuracy for determining residual disease compared with SLN identification alone.