Feb.9 (Tantao News) — http://tantaonews.com/?p=55237 - A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that patients with early-stage breast cancer with limited spread who had undergone a lumpectomy, radiation therapy, and minor lymph node removal did not have worse survival rates than women who had more extensive surgery to remove lymph nodes in the armpit.

Under current guidelines, extensive lymph node removal surgery is done if the cancer has spread outside the breast to any lymph nodes. This procedure carries the risk of complications such as swelling and infection.

The study was conducted by the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, using 1999-2004 data from 115 sites on about 900 female patients with invasive breast cancer. Their initial biopsies showed that cancer had spread to only one or two nearby lymph nodes.

About half of these women received the more invasive lymph node surgery, whereas the other half did not. After five years, approximately 92% of the patients in each group were still alive, and 82-84% in each group had no cancer recurrence. However, 70% of women in the surgery group had complications, including underarm swelling and wound infection, compared to 25% in the group that skipped it.

The study authors acknowledge that there were certain limitations in the study, including the fact that the researchers approached women who already knew their initial lymph node biopsy results. Higher-risk women who wanted conventional node surgery may have chosen not to participate, which could have skewed the results. However, they noted that even high-risk participants, those with breast cancer that doesn’t respond to hormone treatment, had good long-term survival rates even without the node surgery.

In addition, a 10-year follow-up would have provided more reliable data on survival and cancer recurrence.