Breast cancer with metastatic invasion of the sentinel lymph node in an internal mammary chain and with axillary chains free of tumor lesionS

The lymphoscintigraphy is a widely accepted procedure to detect the sentinel node in breast cancer. This is a case report of a 45 year old woman diagnosed of breast cancer who was referred to the nuclear medicine facility to perform the sentinel node detection procedure. The lymphoscintigraphy prior to surgery shows a double pathway in the tracer migration: one going to the axillary area and the second to the internal mammary chain and shows hot spots that represent the sentinel nodes. After surgical removal of those nodes, the pathological analysis report indicated tumor infiltration in the internal mammary chain sentinel node with all axillary nodes free of malignant cells. The aim of this report is to emphasize the importance of performing a pathological analysis of all the sentinel nodes detected in lymphoscintigraphy.