Pathological aspects of axillary nodal staging of breast cancer and in particular sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy are reviewed. SLN biopsy seems an almost ideal staging procedure because it has both high accuracy and a low false negative rate. It may also allow a cost effective use of more sensitive methods of metastasis detection. However, the biological relevance of metastases detected only ...

Male breast cancer (MBC) is considered as a rare disease that accounts for less than 1% of all breast cancers, and its treatment has been based on the evidence available from female breast cancer. Axillary sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is now regarded as the standard of care for both female and male patients without clinical and imaging evidence of axillary lymph node metastases, while inte...

AIMS AND BACKGROUND Sentinel lymph node biopsy is the standard method for axillary lymph node staging in patients with early stage breast cancer. The aim of the study was to evaluate the necessity of axillary lymph node dissection in patients with breast cancer and sentinel lymph node micrometastasis or isolated tumor cells. METHODS Sentinel lymph node biopsy was performed in 136 patients for...

BACKGROUND The association between nodal ratio and survival in oral cavity carcinomas has recently been proposed, but no prospective evaluations exist. METHODS We sought to determine, using an institutional database, whether nodal ratio impacts survival in node-positive oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. RESULTS Between 1994 and 2004, 143 new diagnoses of N(1-2) squamous cell carcinoma of...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to investigate if nodal ratio has a prognostic role in the survival of patients with recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in the neck. METHODS Patients with recurrent NPC in the neck who were treated in Queen Mary Hospital from 2000 to 2011 were identified. Clinical data, pathological results, and survival outcome were analyzed. RESULTS Only noda...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between pretreatment molecular and clinical factors and axillary lymph node metastases in early breast cancer. A total of 367 consecutive breast cancer patients with cT1-2NxM0 who underwent breast conserving surgery and axillary lymph node dissection followed by whole breast irradiation were enrolled. We evaluated the pathologic tumor and no...

BACKGROUND The association between nodal ratio and survival has not been assessed in squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. METHODS This is a population-based analysis, using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results database, to determine whether nodal ratio impacts survival in patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. RESULTS Between 1988 and 2005, 2955 new diagnose...