Management of the Axilla in Early-Stage Breast Cancer

Published ahead of print July 19, 2021,  DOI: 10. 1200/JCO.21.00934

Muriel Brackstone, Fulvia G. Baldassarre, Francisco E. Perera, Tulin Cil, Mariana Chavez Mac Gregor Ian S. Dayes, Jay Engel, Janet K. Horton, Tari A. King, Anat Kornecki, Ralph George, Sandip K. SenGupta, Patricia A. Spears, and Andrea F. Eisen

Purpose

To provide recommendations on the best strategies for the management and on the best timing and treatment (surgical and radiotherapeutic) of the axilla for patients with early-stage breast cancer.

Methods

Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario) and ASCO convened a Working Group and Expert Panel to develop evidence-based recommendations informed by a systematic review of the literature.

Results

This guideline endorsed two recommendations of the ASCO 2017 guideline for the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with early-stage breast cancer and expanded on that guideline with recommendations for radiotherapy interventions, timing of staging after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), and mapping modalities. Overall, the ASCO 2017 guideline, seven high-quality systematic reviews, 54 unique studies, and 65 corollary trials formed the evidentiary basis of this guideline.

Reccomendations

Recommendations are issued for each of the objectives of this guideline: (1) To determine which patients with early-stage breast cancer require axillary staging, (2) to determine whether any further axillary treatment is indicated for women with early-stage breast cancer who did not receive NAC and are sentinel lymph node–negative at diagnosis, (3) to determine which axillary strategy is indicated for women with earlystage breast cancer who did not receive NAC and are pathologically sentinel lymph node–positive at diagnosis (after a clinically node-negative presentation), (4) to determine what axillary treatment is indicated and what the best timing of axillary treatment for women with early-stage breast cancer is when NAC is used, and (5) to determine which are the best methods for identifying sentinel nodes. 

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