Is intraoperative touch imprint cytology of sentinel lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer cost effective?
Jeruss JS; Hunt KK; Xing Y; Krishnamurthy S; Meric-Bernstam F; Cantor SB; Ross MI; Cormier JN Department of Surgical Oncology, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. BACKGROUND: Sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) are generally evaluated postoperatively, requiring 5-7 days for assessment. SLNs can also be evaluated intraoperatively by using touch imprint cytology (TIC), thus providing the surgeon immediate feedback and allowing for concurrent completion node dissection (CND) for positive SLNs. The authors hypothesized that TIC, when compared with standard postoperative SLN assessment alone, would permit a cost-effective evaluation of SLNs in patients with clinically node-negative breast cancer. METHODS: A decision-analysis model was created to compare TIC with standard postoperative SLN assessment alone. Sensitivity and specificity of TIC were determined prospectively from 342 patients who underwent SLN biopsy assessed by both techniques. Short-term health
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