Factors influencing axillary lymph node metastasis in invasive breast cancer.

PURPOSE

To explore the relationship between auxiliary lymph node metastasis and clinical features, and to identify the factors that affect metastasis occurrence.

METHODS

A total of 164 cases of primary breast cancer were selected to investigate features such as age, concomitant chronic disease and pathologic diagnosis. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of the estrogen receptor (ER) and CerbB-2. Logistic regression was employed to analyze the factors that affect the incidence of lymph node metastases.

RESULTS

The incidence of lymph node metastases was 46.3% among elderly patients with breast cancer. Based on logistic regression, chronic disease, scale of tumor, age, and ER expression affected the occurrence of lymph node metastases; the ORs were 3.05, 2.18, 0.34, and 3.83, respectively. Between different pathologic diagnoses and the risk factors, the OR scores were 12.7 and 8.02, respectively, for aggressive ductal carcinoma and aggressive lobular carcinoma auxiliary lymph node metastases.

CONCLUSION

The incidence of lymph node metastases is affected by chronic disease, scale of tumor, age, ER expression and pathologic diagnosis.