Molecular Detection of Micrometastatic Breast Cancer in Histopathology—Negative Axillary Lymph Nodes Fails to Predict Breast Cancer Recurrence: A Final Analysis of a Prospective Multi-Institutional Cohort Study

摘要

Background To address the clinical relevance of molecular detection of occult breast cancer in sentinel lymph nodes and nonsentinel axillary lymph nodes (ALN), we initiated the Minimally Invasive Molecular Staging of Breast Cancer (MIMS) trial, a multi-institutional prospective cohort study. This trial represents the first prospective cohort study in which a multimarker, real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis was applied to the detection of breast cancer micrometastases in ALN.