Have you considered alternatives to surgical removal of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer to reduce the risk of lymphedema? This question was explored in a pilot phase III clinical trial evaluating whether axillary radiotherapy (ART) could lower the incidence of lymphedema compared with axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in 272 breast cancer patients with nodal metastasis undergoing neoadjuvant therapy. Among the available data from 102 patients, lymphedema occurred more frequently following ALND than ART (26.7% vs 18.9%), although the difference was not statistically significant.
Notably, no axillary recurrences were reported in the ART group, compared with one event in the ALND group. Distant metastasis was also observed in fewer patients in the ART group than in the ALND group (4.4% vs 5.5%). Disease-free and overall survival rates were similar between groups at two years;…
