suggestion made by study to surgeons treating DCIS w possible invasion

[Melissa]

Sounds like to me all the surgeons should be doing a SNB.

[Jean]

Thanks Lani for the post.
There is a new member who posted today who was first dx. 1999
with a small cancer and neg. node. She has now experiencing a
recurrence and her dr. is surprised.

Melissa, although some surgeons consider SLN biopsey to be the standard of care there are some surgeons who do not perform the procedure.
That is why patients must be updated and knowledgable about their
treatment.

My feelings on SLN bipsey is the following: I do feel it should be performed to confirm whether the lymph is positive /or/negative.
Negative being favorable. But strangely enough I am not 100%
comfortable with a negative results. The all over path report must be
understood to make clear treatment decisions, such as Hopeful with
her low KI-67 levels...and myself with high levels.

I believe the strongest advantage of SLN biopsey is not having to have a
standard LN removal, which involves removing most of the nodes in the area of the tumor.

From what I was told back in '05, (maybe at that time surgeons were not doing many) it was a bit tricky to locate etc. even with the dye.
That one would want to have a surgeon who does them often and is expert in this.

This SLN mapping was started back in 1977 and began to be
used in 1994 in breast cancer....one has to ponder why these procedures are taking so long to be "Standard of Care"?

Regards,
jean

[Jean]

How accurate is SLN biopsey?

I think it is important to understand that while the SLN biopsey helps to stage a cancer there are (like anything else) false negatives. While the percentage is low it is vital to understand that
a cell can pass through and in fact other axillary lymph nodes do contain cancer. There could also be the presence of more than one sentinel node. Very important to have a surgeon who is truly proficient in this area. I had a close friend who was having a biopsey performed on
a tumor which was found and she had a wonderful surgeon - but
he was not a breast surgeon and after I discussed with her the SLN
biopsey and how critical it is that the surgeon have great experience with this procedure she decided to have her surgery done by a experienced breast surgeon who has a protocol for all aspects of this procedure.

Regards,
Jean