Dr. Chagpar on Management of the Axilla in Breast Cancer

Video

In Partnership With:

Anees B. Chagpar, MD, FACS, associate professor, Department of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine, assistant director, Global Oncology, Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the management of the axilla in breast cancer.

Anees B. Chagpar, MD, FACS, associate professor, Department of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine, assistant director, Global Oncology, Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the management of the axilla in breast cancer.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is becoming a mainstay in the treatment of patients with locally advanced and operable breast cancer, says Chagpar. This has prompted many physicians to question how to best manage the axilla. Robust clinical trial data have since shown that a sentinel lymph node biopsy is feasible and accurate in the setting of neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Therefore, for many patients who have had a fine needle aspiration biopsy or a core needle biopsy that indicates lymph node metastases prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, patients no longer have to undergo an axillary node dissection, says Chagpar. Rather, a sentinel node biopsy can be done to assess where the patient stands at that point. If they have residual disease, they can then opt for an axillary node dissection. Moreover, there are now trials looking at radiation therapy alone for those patients, concludes Chagpar.

Related Videos
Shivaani Kummar, MBBS, FACP, Margaret and Lester DeArmond Endowed Chair of Cancer Research, Professor and Division Head, Division of Hematology/Medical Oncology, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine; co-director, Center for Experimental Therapeutics, co-deputy director, Knight Cancer Institute
Andre Goy, MD
Wenxin (Vincent) Xu, MD,
Guenther Koehne, MD, PhD
Alessandro Villa, DDS, PhD, MPH
Joseph Mikhael, MD
Michael Richardson, MD
Video 1 - "HR+/HER2- Early-Stage Breast Cancer: Background and Risk Stratification "