Tailored axillary surgery facilitated by axillary Magseed placement

Abstract

Introduction: De-escalation of axillary surgery in the treatment of node positive breast cancer is facilitated by marking biopsy-proven involved nodes. During the POSNOC study, women with 1 or 2 imaging-abnormal lymph nodes had Magseeds inserted to ensure retrieval of the node(s) at surgery. Such imaging-abnormal lymph nodes may not mandate axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) and several trials (e.g. TAXIS) are currently in progress. We report our experience using the paramagnetic Magseed marker in this context.