The laparoscopic approach appears to offer a suitable alternative to laparotomy, which, in our setting, was associated with shorter operative times and hospital stays than laparotomy.

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PurposeTo evaluate non-sentinel lymph node (LN) status after sentinel lymph node biopsy (SNB) in patients with breast cancer and to identify the predictive factors for disease failure.Materials and MethodsFrom January 2006 to December 2007, axillary lymph node (ALN) dissection after SNB was performed for patients with primary invasive breast cancer who had no clinical evidence of LN metastasis. A total of 320 patients were treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiotherapy.ResultsThe median age of patients was 48 years, and the median follow-up time was 72.8 months. Close resection margin (RM) was observed in 13 patients. The median number of dissected SNB was two, and that of total retrieved ALNs was 11. Sentinel node accuracy was 94.7%, and the overall false negative rate (FNR) was 5.3%. Eleven patients experienced treatment failure. Local recurrence, regional LN recurrence, and distant metastasis were identified in 0.9%, 1.9%, and 2.8% of these patients, respectively. Sentinel LN status were not associated with locoregional recurrence (p > 0.05). Close RM was the only significant factor for disease-free survival (DFS) in univariate and multivariate analysis. The 5-year overall survival, DFS, and locoregional DFS were 100%, 96.8%, and 98.1%, respectively.ConclusionIn this study, SNB was performed with high accuracy and low FNR and high locoregional control was achieved.