Transaxillary breast augmentation: two breast cancer patients with successful sentinel lymph node diagnosis.

In recent years, some surgeons have been warned of possible problems with sentinel lymph node diagnosis (SLND) for patients who have undergone transaxillary breast augmentation (TBA), although no scientific studies support this warning. The authors report two additional cases of breast cancer in which the SLND was successfully performed for patients with previous TBA. The surgical anatomy of the axilla, the groups of lymph nodes, and a personal way of performing TBA are described. Five other reports concerning the same issue are thoroughly discussed. Four of these are clinical in vivo reports, and one is a cadaver study. The four in vivo studies and what we are reporting now clearly demonstrate that what was said regarding possible problems in the SLND after TBA was not founded on clinical research and contradicts these five clinical findings.