A Prospective Study Comparing Touch Imprint Cytology Frozen Section Analysis and Rapid Cytokeratin Immunostain for Intraoperative Evaluation of Axillary Sentinel Lymph Nodes in Breast Cancer

摘要

BACKGROUNDThe intraoperative evaluation of axillary sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) allows the surgeon to complete axillary dissection in 1 setting at the time of the primary breast surgery. However, to the authors’ knowledge, there is no consensus regarding the optimal method for intraoperative evaluation of SLNs in breast cancer. The authors of this report prospectively compared touch imprint (TI) cytology with frozen section (FS) analysis and rapid cytokeratin immunostaining (RCI) of SLNs for the intraoperative evaluation of disease and compared the results with final pathologic examination (FP).