Description

Axillary clearance is a part of cancer surgery. Previously, all patients with invasive breast cancer were required to undergo a complete axillary clearance. However, that lead to chronic upper limb pain, lymphoedema and recurrent lymphangitis. Extensive research has now shown that a complete axillary clearance is now required in select patients. Those with early disease and negative sentinel lymph nodes on frozen section can be safely spared a complete clearance and hence the long term morbidity of axillary dissection. Axillary lymph node dissection is the best prognostic indicator and is very important for staging the disease accurately.

Filter tags