Does Conservative Surgery for Breast Carcinoma Still Require Axillary Lymph Node Evaluation? A Retrospective Analysis of 1156 Consecutive Women With Early Breast Cancer

The role of axillary surgery for early breast carcinoma treated with conservative surgery and radiotherapy is currently the subject of considerable investigation. Recent studies have supported the noninferiority of avoiding axillary surgery in terms of overall survival when sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) presents ≤ 2 positive lymph nodes, thus sparing the patients from complications. There are some ongoing studies investigating the possibility of omitting SLNB. Axillary study seems to be sufficiently replaced by SLNB for staging the disease. Axillary surgery maintains a therapeutic role in the presence of > 2 metastatic lymph nodes at SLNB.