Sanjeeb Kumar Pradhan1, Bhupati Bhusan Das2, Niranjan Sahoo3, Sushanta Kumar Das4, Charan Panda5
BACKGROUND
Axillary staging of patients with breast cancer is essential for treatment planning. It can be done by sentinel lymph node biopsy. However, Doppler ultrasound of axilla can be used, which is a non-invasive procedure and has less complication as compared to sentinel lymph node biopsy.
AIM AND OBJECTIVE
This prospective study was conducted to evaluate the use of Doppler ultrasound in preoperative evaluation of clinically node-negative axilla in breast cancer.
PATIENTS AND METHODS
Seventy histologically (core needle) proven cases of breast cancer with clinically negative axilla were evaluated using 7.5 MHz high frequency Doppler ultrasound. The Long axis/Short axis(L/S) ratio, Hilum/Long axis(H/L) ratio, flow pattern of lymph node, Resistivity Index (RI) and Pulsatility Index (PI) were recorded.
RESULTS
On the basis of the Doppler ultrasound findings, it is possible to identify the subset of patients at high-risk of harbouring nodal metastasis and these patients can be offered upfront axillary nodal dissection.
CONCLUSIONS
It can be concluded that USG and USG guided FNAC is the best tool to assess the axillary metastasis in cases of carcinoma breast especially in clinically axillary node-negative cases.
