Sentinel Lymph Node Total Tumoral Load as a Predictor of Non Sentinel Node Involvement in Early Breast Cancer

Inclusion Criteria

• •Pathologically confirmed invasive breast carcinoma
• •Stage T1-3,N0 evaluated by physical exam or imaging according to AJCC v.7 and best clinical local practices
• •Intraoperative evaluation of sentinel lymph node (SLN) by OSNA
• •Complete dissection of axillary lymph nodes after the evaluation of the SLNs by OSNA
• •Pathology report of the tumor and dissected lymph nodes that includes the following information:
• •* primary tumor size (mm), tumor grade (Scarff-Bloom Richardson), estrogen receptor status
• •* progesterone receptor status
• •* HER2 status (ASCO/CAP guidelines)
• •* Ki67 index
• •* presence/absence of lymphovascular invasion
• •* total number of sentinel and non-sentinel lymph nodes dissected during surgery
• •* total number of positive and negative sentinel and non-sentinel lymph nodes, \*size of the metastasis in both sentinel and non-sentinel lymph nodes
• •* total tumoral load in each sentinel lymph node, expressed as number of CK19 mRNA copies per microliter.