Negative Predictive Value Of Ipsilateral Axillary Ultrasound In The Pre-Operative Assessment Of Invasive Breast Cancer.

e12080Objective: To determine if a negative preoperative axillary ultrasound predicts a negative sentinel lymph node biopsy at surgery. Background: Axillary lymph node involvement is an important prognostic indicator in patients with breast cancer. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is currently the gold standard for determining the presence or absence of axillary metastases. Pre-operative axillary ultrasound is often used to evaluate axillary lymph node status prior to surgery and SLNB. Although there are no established guidelines on when preoperative axillary ultrasound is performed, at our institution we evaluate the axilla when invasive breast cancer is suspected. This study evaluated the negative predictive value (NPV) of axillary ultrasound compared to the pathology results of SLNB. Methods: In this single-center IRB-approved retrospective study, 3 years of breast imaging data (2014-2016) were reviewed. 137 patients had pathology verified invasive breast cancer with negative preoperative axillary ult...