Axillary surgery for breast cancer: past, present, and future.

In breast cancer surgery, there has been a major shift toward less invasive local treatment. Although axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) was an integral part of surgical treatment for breast cancer, sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy was developed as an accurate method for axillary staging. ALND can be avoided not only in patients with negative SLNs but also in those with one or two positive SLNs receiving breast and/or axillary radiation. On the other hand, ALND has remained the standard treatment for patients with clinically positive nodes. However, axillary reverse mapping (ARM) was developed to map and preserve arm lymphatic drainage during ALND and/or SLN biopsy. This procedure allowed reduction of the rate of arm lymphedema without increasing axillary recurrence, although patients receive postoperative chemotherapy and high-risk patients undergo axillary radiation. Standard ALND may not be necessary even for patients with clinically positive nodes who receive axillary radiation and systemic therapy. Thus, the extent of axillary surgery in breast cancer has been decreased with increased use of systemic and radiation therapy.

Axillary surgery in breast cancer: An updated historical perspective.

This historical surgical retrospection focuses on the temporal de-escalation axillary surgery, focusing on the unceasing efforts of researchers toward new challenges, as documented by extensive studies and trials. Axillary surgery has evolved, aiming to offer the best oncologic treatment and improve the quality of life of women. Axillary lymph-node dissection (ALND) has been replaced by sentinel lymph-node biopsy (SLNB) in women with early clinically node-negative breast cancer, providing adequate axillary nodal staging information with minimal morbidity, and becoming the standard of care in the management of breast cancer. However, this is only the beginning. Strategies in defining systemic and radiotherapeutic treatments have gradually been optimized, offering increasingly refined and targeted breast cancer treatment tools. In recent years, the paradigm of completion ALND after a positive SLNB has been questioned, and several studies have led to revolutionary changes in clinical practice. Moreover, the increasingly pivotal role played by neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) has had a profound effect on the extent of axillary surgery, paving the way to a more finite "targeted" procedure in women with node-positive breast cancer who convert to negative nodes clinically after NAC. The utility of SLNB itself and its subsequent omission in women with negative nodes clinically and breast conservative surgery is also under scientific evaluation. The changes over time in the surgical approach to breast cancer have been numerous and significant. The novel emerging perspective characterized by recent advances in biology and genetics, in dedicated axillary ultrasound imaging and chemotherapy regimens, is the present reality that points to the future of axillary node treatment in breast cancer.

The evolution of sentinel node biopsy for breast cancer: Personal experience.

Sentinel node biopsy has dramatically altered the treatment of breast cancer worldwide. The author's investigation into its use in breast cancer began nearly 30 years ago and evolved from simply identifying a node predictive of the axillary status to being a therapeutic procedure eliminating axillary dissection for selected node-negative and some node-positive women. This paper summarizes a personal experience with the evolution of this technique.

Twenty-five years of change in the management of the axilla in breast cancer.

Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy is now used worldwide. It has led to many changes in how we manage the axilla in patients with breast cancer. This review covers four areas of management of the axilla in breast cancer: assessing the clinically node-negative axilla, managing the clinically negative axilla found to be involved at SLN biopsy, management of the clinically positive axilla in the context of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, and treatment of the diseased axilla when radical therapy is required. We suggest that the evidence supports an optimum number of 3 nodes to be removed for accurate SLN biopsy. Breast cancer departments that have not adopted Z0011 patient management cannot continue to avoid change. The evidence is clear: Not all patients with limited axillary nodal disease on sentinel node biopsy need axillary lymph node dissection. For patients who do need axillary treatment, axillary radiotherapy continues to be under-used. Patients undergoing neo-adjuvant chemotherapy can be safely assessed by post-therapy SLN biopsy, with retrieval of any previously biopsied involved nodes by targeted axillary dissection. There is much to support the trend to doing less in the axilla. We are obliged to act based on the available robust clinical trial data in a way that limits morbidity while at the same time does not increase the risk of disease recurrence.

Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy: Past and Present Implications for the Management of Cutaneous Melanoma with Nodal Metastasis.

Although significant progress has been made in the understanding of melanoma pathophysiology and therapy, patients with metastatic melanoma still have a poor prognosis. The management of regional nodes remains a matter of debate. By replacing elective lymph node dissection, sentinel lymph node biopsy has revolutionized the treatment of malignant melanoma. In this paper, the history of the procedure is traced, and the indication for completion lymphadenectomy after positive sentinel node biopsy is discussed in light of the recent studies that addressed this issue. The role of adjuvant therapies in the management of patients with stage III melanoma is also discussed.

Detection of melanoma metastases with the sentinel node biopsy: the legacy of Donald L. Morton, MD (1934-2014).

Dr. Donald L. Morton was clearly the pioneer of the sentinel node biopsy, which was a major advance in oncology that has improved the management of cancer patients worldwide. He conducted a series of practice-changing clinical trials to validate the important staging role of the sentinel lymph node biopsy for melanoma, and also spawned other studies that demonstrated its staging value in multiple other cancer types, most notably in breast cancer, gastric cancer, and colorectal cancer. His many contributions in this field have provided a unique opportunity to study host/tumor relationships, since the sentinel lymph node is the first location were the host immune defenses are confronted with metastasis arising from the primary cancer.

Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy: Evolution of the Technique Since the Original Description by Morton et al. in 1992.

Donald Morton was a truly amazing man: a remarkable scientist and an outstanding, inspirational surgical oncologist. For those of us who had the great fortune to know him personally, it was an experience that we will always remember with warmth and gratitude. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of patients in the future will also be grateful to him when they benefit from his original but simple idea that has so dramatically improved the surgical approach to patients with cancers that may metastasize to regional lymph nodes: the sentinel lymph node biopsy concept.

The history of sentinel node biopsy in head and neck cancer: From visualization of lymphatic vessels to sentinel nodes.

The aim of this report is to describe the history of sentinel node biopsy in head and neck cancer. Sentinel node biopsy is a minimally invasive technique to select patients for treatment of metastatic lymph nodes in the neck. Although this procedure has only recently been accepted for early oral cancer, the first studies on visualization of the cervical lymphatic vessels were reported in the 1960s. In the 1980s mapping of lymphatic drainage from specific head and neck sites was introduced. Sentinel node biopsy was further developed in the 1990s and after validation in this century the procedure is routinely performed in early oral cancer in several head and neck centers. New techniques may improve the accuracy of sentinel node biopsy further, particularly in difficult subsites like the floor of mouth.

The history of sentinel lymph node biopsy.

The sentinel node biopsy technique, developed by Drs Donald Morton and Alistair Cochran and reported in 1992, undoubtedly constitutes the most important recent development in surgical oncology. This article describes the evolution of the procedure and its contribution to the evolution of modern multidisciplinary cancer care and discusses its present role in the management of patients with melanoma, breast cancer, and a wide range of other malignancies.

The evolution of regional nodal irradiation in breast cancer.

Breast cancer regional node management has witnessed many changes over the last decade. Advances in surgical techniques establishing sentinel lymph node biopsy as an alternative to axillary dissection, use of microarray technology for subtyping breast cancer to guide systemic therapy selection, and the expansion of the systemic therapy armamentarium including targeted agents have contributed to changing our strategy from one size fits all to a more tailored approach. There have also been recent landmark studies reported that significantly impact clinical practice in the regional nodal management of breast cancer. As the molecular era of personalized medicine is approaching, we hereby revisit the rational, benefit, and controversies of regional nodal irradiation in the light of the most recent publications.

Sentinel node biopsy and improved patient care.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is based on the hypothesis that the sentinel lymph node (SLN) reflects the lymph-node status and a negative SLN might allow complete axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) to be avoided. Past and current sentinel lymph node clinical trials for breast carcinoma have addressed the prognostic and therapeutic benefits of this technique and as such, SLNB has become a standard of care for select breast cancer patients. This article reviews the history of SLNB as well as current guidelines and recent controversies.

Milestones in breast cancer treatment.

Modern treatment started in the 1880s with Halsted's mastectomy. The next milestone-a century later-was breast-conserving surgery, with equivalent survival but better esthetic outcomes than mastectomy. Sentinel node biopsy, introduced in the 1990s, was a milestone that permitted avoidance of axillary dissection if the sentinel node was disease-free. Chemotherapy was established for early breast cancer in the 1980s and its efficacy continues to improve; however side effects remain a concern, particularly since chemotherapy does not benefit most patients. External whole breast irradiation was introduced with conservative surgery, as it reduces recurrences. By the 2000s, 3-week regimens had been shown equivalent to standard 6-week regimens-easing pressure on patients and radiation centers. Intraoperative partial breast irradiation is potentially more beneficial as it permits complete local treatment in a single session; however, trials show that patients must be very carefully selected. From the 1990s irradiation technology was combined with imaging and computer technologies to produce equipment that directs radiation to more precisely defined target volumes, allowing increased dose to the target and markedly reduced dose to nearby tissues. Irradiation systems are evolving rapidly but are being implemented without data on long-term morbidity or efficacy, while costs rise steeply. The first targeted treatment was tamoxifen, a selective estrogen receptor inhibitor. Since its widespread use starting in the 1980s, tamoxifen has saved the lives or prolonged the survival of millions with estrogen-positive disease; it is cheap and has limited (but not negligible) side effects. The same cannot be said of newer targeted treatments like trastuzumab and pertuzumab, which, although effective against human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive cancer, come with important side effects and huge costs. Breast cancer mortality is declining in rich countries, but treatments have become more demanding and more expensive, so the outlook for the increasing numbers of women worldwide who develop the disease is uncertain.

Evolution of sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer, in and out of vogue?

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was introduced 2 decades ago and thereafter validated for routine surgical management of breast cancer, including cases treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. As the number of lymph nodes for staging has decreased, pathologists have scrutinized SLN with a combination of standard hematoxylin and eosin, levels, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and molecular methods. An epidemic of small-volume metastases thereby arose, leading to modifications in the American Joint Committee on Cancer staging to accommodate findings such as isolated tumor cells (ITC) and micrometastases. With the goal of determining the significance of these findings, retrospective followed by prospective trials were performed, showing mixed results. The ACOSOG Z10 and NSABP B-32 trials both independently showed that ITC and micrometastases were not significant and thus discouraged the use of levels and IHC for detecting them. However, the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database showed that patients with micrometastases had an overall decreased survival. In addition, the MIRROR (Micrometastases and ITC: Relevant and Robust or Rubbish?) trial, showed that patients with ITC and micrometastases treated with adjuvant therapy had lower hazard ratios compared with untreated patients. Subsequently, the ACOSOG Z0011 trial randomized patients with up to 2 positive SLN to axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) or not, all treated with radiation and chemotherapy, showing no difference in survival or recurrence rates between the 2 groups and causing a shift from ALND. As the rate of ALND has declined, the necessity of performing levels, IHC, frozen section, and molecular studies on SLN needs to be revisited.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer: a history and current clinical recommendations.

The advent of sentinel lymph node biopsy changed the way the surgical community treated breast cancer. It also reduced the post operative morbidity for millions of patients. Now that sentinel lymph node biopsy has become the mainstay of treatment, new clinical questions have arisen and continued research is being done to answer these questions. This report details a brief history of sentinel lymph node biopsy and how it was applied in the treatment a breast cancer. This report also includes a review of the current literature regarding unique clinical scenarios involving sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer including the ACOSOG Z011 trial.

The history of radical hysterectomy.

Carcinoma of the uterine cervix provides one of the few examples in medical history of a method of treatment that was once discarded by most of the medical profession and was later reclaimed. In addition, radical hysterectomy (RH) competed with radical vaginal hysterectomy during the early history of RH. The primitive form of RH was first described by Clark and Reis in 1895. Radical hysterectomy was then described in detail and performed by Wertheim, more than 100 years ago. Afterward, RH was abandoned for the treatment of carcinomas because of the use of radiotherapy; however, RH was then modified and repopularized by Meigs in the 1950s. The surgical principles of this operation have undergone only minor modifications throughout the years and remained the basis of the surgical approach used by gynecologic oncologists today. The history of the treatment of cervical carcinoma and the history of RH are unique in medicine. Because of the efforts of the surgeons and scientists, cervical carcinoma has become rarer, and its mortality rate has decreased, although it is still common in undeveloped countries. The history of the treatment of cervical carcinoma includes 3 Nobel Prize winners and 1 Nobel Prize nominee. We therefore think that knowledge of the historical development of this filed will inspire and contribute to the education of future generations. In this article, the historical development of the surgical treatment of cervical carcinoma, the contributors to this surgical procedure, and the pioneers of the surgical and medical treatment of cervical carcinoma are summarized; pictures and illustrations are also provided. Our aim was to inform the gynecologic oncology community about the pioneers that devoted their professional lives to develop of these techniques.