Abstract
undertaken after administration of both the magnetic and standard tracers. We have defined the trial with 80% power, a 5% one-sided significance and a proportion discordance of 0.052. Results: 169 SLNB procedures were undertaken on 160 patients. The identification rate was 95% (152/160) with the combined technique and 94% (151/160) with the magnetic technique (95% upper confidence limit 4.4%; 0.62% difference; 6.88% discordance). Of 23% (36/160) of patients with lymph node involvement, 16% (26/160) had at least 1 macrometastasis and 6% (10/160), a micrometastasis only. Another 2% (3/160) had individual tumour cells. Of 402 lymph nodes removed, 295 (73%) were true sentinel nodes. Lymph node retrieval rate was 2.5 nodes per patient overall, 1.8 nodes per patient with the standard technique and 2.0 nodes per patient with the magnetic technique. Conclusion: The magnetic technique is a feasible technique for SLNB, non-inferior to the combined technique.
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