Touch imprint cytology in axillary sentinel lymph node biopsy - a series of 1522 cases over 5 years

Abstract

Introduction: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) using radioisotope +/- blue dye has been carried out for five years in our unit as an axillary staging procedure for breast cancer. We carry out intra-operative touch imprint cytology (TIC) using the single longitudinal bisection technique followed by full histological analysis of the sentinel lymph nodes. This study reviews data collected over a 5 year period to determine the sensitivity and specificity of TIC in practice and reports overall rates of SLNB positivity and negativity.