Introduction
Management in breast cancer is heading toward less invasive approaches with high survival and low recurrence rates. Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) has a high morbidity on breast cancer patients; on the other hand, sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) overcomes such morbidity with comparable survival and recurrence rates. In this study, the authors aim to assess diagnostic accuracy of carbon nanoparticles (CN) in SLNB in patients with early breast cancer.
Patients and methods
From November 2020 to March 2022, patients with early breast cancer and clinically and radiologically free axillary lymph nodes who had SLN detection using CNs followed by ALND were included. Patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy, are pregnant, or refused consent were excluded.
Results
In this study, 30 patients with clinically node-negative early breast cancer patients were investigated using CN for SLN mapping. Mean age of our participants was 49.2±5.8. CN technique had a sensitivity of 100% (95% confidence interval: 80.49–100), specificity of 92.3% (95% confidence interval: 63.9–99.8), positive predictive value of 94.4%, negative predictive value of 100%, and false-negative rate=0%. The summary receiver-operating characteristics of CN showed excellent diagnostic performance with area under the curve of 0.962 (=0.0001).
Conclusion
SLN mapping using proper technique is vital to avoid recurrence and promote survival and decrease morbidity without need for ALND. CN had excellent sensitivity and specificity with low false-negative rate.