Sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer using methylene blue dye manifests a short learning curve among experienced surgeons: a prospective tabular cumulative sum (CUSUM) analysis

Background  

The benefits of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for breast cancer patients with histologically negative axillary nodes, in whom axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) is thereby avoided, are now established. Low false negative rate, certainly with blue dye technique, mostly reflects the established high inherent accuracy of SLNB and low axillary nodal metastatic load (subject to patient selection). SLN identification rate is influenced by volume, injection site and choice of mapping agent, axillary nodal metastatic load, SLN location and skill at axillary dissection. Being more subject to technical failure, SLN identification seems to be a more reasonable variable for learning curve assessment than false negative rate.