TY - JOUR AU - Elamin, Ghassan AU - Sapre, Dimple AU - Tehniyat, Wajiha AU - Jahan, Ali AU - Dakka, Mahmoud PY - 2019 TI - Pathological complete response in the axillary lymph nodes post neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer, is it predictable? JF - Annals of Breast Surgery; Vol 3 (August 2019): Annals of Breast Surgery Y2 - 2019 KW - N2 - Background: With the recent advances in breast cancer management in the neo-adjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) setting the rates of pathological complete response (pCR) in the breast and the axilla has become more achievable. This has imposed a more conservative surgical approach. While, axillary node clearance (ANC) is still the gold standard procedure in node positive axilla. Converting a node positive into node negative axilla allows surgical de-escalation. However, an evidence-based selection criteria would improve outcomes in this group of patients. Methods: To formulate a selection criteria for node positive breast cancer patients who would achieve pCR in the axilla post NACT. A retrospective single centre study investigated 103 breast cancer patients with metastatic axillary LNs who underwent NACT between 2009–2017. Initial imaging, post-surgical imaging and histopathology (HP) were compared to the axillary response. Analysis performed using R. Citation: R Core Team [2018]. Results: There has been a statistically significant association between pCR in the axilla and the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive cancers (P=0.012), negative lympho-vascular invasion (LVI) (P UR - https://abs.amegroups.org/article/view/5301