Is intra-operative nodal assessment essential in a modern breast practice?

摘要

Much research effort is presently directed towards development of an optimal method for intra-operative assessment of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer patients. Several different approaches are practised with no single method perceived as having any overall advantage in terms of performance, patient care, logistics and cost. These include frozen section (FS), touch imprint cytology (TIMC) and the newer molecular biological assays based on reverse-transcription technologies.