活体染料注射法识别乳腺癌患者前哨淋巴结失败及假阴性原因分析

目的 探讨活体染料注射法识别乳腺癌患者前哨淋巴结失败及假阴性的原因。方法 84例早期乳腺癌患者采用活体染料亚甲蓝作为前哨淋巴结活检示踪剂。术中切除前哨淋巴结行常规冰冻切片检查,无肿瘤转移者进一步做免疫组化检测。术后分离出全部乳腺及腋窝淋巴结送病理检查。结果 11例患者术中未检出前哨淋巴结,失败率13.1%。73例检出前哨淋巴结的患者中,32例前哨淋巴结受肿瘤累及,病理证实这些患者均有腋窝淋巴结转移;2例患者前哨淋巴结未受肿瘤累及,但病理证实腋窝淋巴结转移,前哨淋巴结预测腋窝淋巴结状态的敏感性为90.4%,特异性1005,假阴性率2.7%。结论 活体染料注射法识别前哨淋巴结失败主要与外科医师的技术熟练程度及方法欠妥有关,而假阴性的出现多为原发肿瘤过大及前哨淋巴结位置变异所致。

Cause of failure and false negative result in sentinel lymph node biopsy through vital blue injection in breast carcinoma

Objective To investigate the cause of sentinel lymph node biopsy failure and false negative result in vital blue injection for berast cancer. Methods Eight-four female breast cancer patients were injected with vital blue to find the sentinel lymph nodes during operation. All patients were treated by the traditional radical or modified radical mastectomy with axillary dissection after sentinel node biopsy. All sentinel nodes, axillary lymph nodes and dissected specimens were submitted separately to pathological examination. Results Sentinel node was not identified at the time of operation in 11 patients, giving a failure rate of 13.1%. In 73 patients in whom sentinel nodes were identified, 32 (43.8%) revealed cancer invasion. Postoperative axillary node pathology showed cancer metastasis in all of them. Two patients who showed uninvaded sentinel nodes were demonstrated to have axillary node metastasis. These were the two false negative patients. Therefore, the prediction of axillary metastasis by the sentinel node biopsy showed a sensitivity of 90.4%, a specificity of 100% and a false negative rate of 2.7%. Conclusion Failure in identifying the sentinel nodes in vital blue injection is related to the degree of mastering the technique and the method of injection. The cause of false negative result is due to an extensive primary tumor and the variation in the position of the sentinel lymph nodes.