Increasing age does not affect efficacy of sentinel lymph node biopsy using smaller-sized technetium-99m tin colloids for breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND

Increasing age of breast cancer patients was reported to cause not only failure of sentinel lymph node (SLN) identification but also false negative results.

METHODS

A retrospective review was conducted of breast cancer patients who underwent sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) using small-sized technetium-99m-labeled tin colloid (particle size: 200-400 nm in diameter). A comparison between 82 patients who were less than 60 years and 40 patients who were > or =60 years of age was performed to evaluate the efficacy of SLNB using the small-sized tin colloid in older patients.

RESULTS

One hundred twenty-two clinically node-negative breast cancer patients underwent SLNB. Apart from age, there were no statistically significant differences between the younger patients and the older patients in terms of the clinicopathologic characteristics. Successful mapping rates, false negative rates, and accuracy were comparable between the 2 groups.

CONCLUSIONS

SLNB using the small-sized tin colloid was not affected by increasing age.