Determination of axillary nodal status in surgery of breast carcinoma: a prospective study of thirty-five patients.

Thirty-seven axillary status of patients with breast carcinoma was studied with preoperative and peroperative palpation before mastectomy and total axillary dissection. Special attention was paid to the clinical suspiciousness and size of axillary nodes. The preoperative axillary palpation gave false diagnosis of axillary content 27% of the time and peroperative, 19%. Of all 249 nodes studied, 54 were found to contain malignant growth in routine histological examination. Mean diameter of malignant nodes was 12.4 mm and of benign nodes, 6.3 mm. The most clinically suspect axillary lymph node gave correct diagnosis of axillary status in 72% of the cases. The 2 most suspect lymph nodes together were positive in 89%. There was no case with histologically positive axilla where none of the 3 most suspect lymph nodes was malignant. We conclude that at least the 3 most suspect axillary lymph nodes must be removed for histological examination to be sure that axillary metastasizing of breast carcinoma can be found by routine histological examination.