Premarking of Axillary Nodes Before Start of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Using Magnetic Approach

Summary

Breast cancer is one of the commonest types of cancers in females. Treatments include surgery followed by anti-estrogen therapy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. During breast surgery, the surgeon removes the cancer from the breast and lymph nodes (glands) from the armpit. Historically, all armpit lymph nodes were surgically removed but this approach is associated long term problems of arm swelling. In more recent times, an increasingly more selective approach is used to treat the armpit nodes. In the presence of cancer spreads in the nodes, an axillary clearance surgery is done otherwise, only the first node(s) also called sentinel node(s) that drain fluids from the cancer, is surgically removed. The identification of nodes using the latter approach is helped by injecting a tracer in the breast and via the lymphatic channels, the tracer is then concentrated in the sentinel nodes. Over recent years, neoadjuvant (preoperative) chemotherapy is being increasingly used to treat breast cancers. This treatment approach can lead up to a large of number of complete cancer response. This in turn can cause difficulties in locating the breast cancer / armpit nodes during surgery after the chemotherapy. New developments like superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIO or MagTrace®) has been used as an alternate liquid tracer to mark sentinel nodes to facilitate armpit surgery. In addition, small magnetic clip called Magseed® has also been developed which can be inserted into the relevant lymph nodes thereby marking their anatomical position to facilitate surgery. Both MagTrace and Magseed can be used to pre-mark the cancer and armpit nodes before the start of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. In theory, premarking armpit nodes using a magnetic approach is associated with better surgical accuracy in the armpit but there is limited supporting data. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the feasibility of premarking armpit nodes, with or without cancer spread, using magtrace and magseed respectively before patients undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Timeline

Start

2021-10-01

Primary completion

2023-10-28

Completion

2023-11-28

Publications

• Background Fisher CS, Margenthaler JA, Hunt KK, Schwartz T. The Landmark Series: Axillary Management in Breast Cancer. Ann Surg Oncol. 2020 Mar;27(3):724-729. doi: 10.1245/s10434-019-08154-5. Epub 2019 Dec 20.
• Background Racz JM, Caudle AS. Sentinel Node Lymph Node Surgery After Neoadjuvant Therapy: Principles and Techniques. Ann Surg Oncol. 2019 Oct;26(10):3040-3045. doi: 10.1245/s10434-019-07591-6. Epub 2019 Jul 24.
• Background Samiei S, van Kaathoven BN, Boersma L, Granzier RWY, Siesling S, Engelen SME, de Munck L, van Kuijk SMJ, van der Hulst RRJW, Lobbes MBI, Smidt ML, van Nijnatten TJA. Risk of Positive Sentinel Lymph Node After Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy in Clinically Node-Negative Breast Cancer: Implications for Postmastectomy Radiation Therapy and Immediate Breast Reconstruction. Ann Surg Oncol. 2019 Nov;26(12):3902-3909. doi: 10.1245/s10434-019-07643-x. Epub 2019 Jul 29.
• Background Warnberg F, Stigberg E, Obondo C, Olofsson H, Abdsaleh S, Warnberg M, Karakatsanis A. Long-Term Outcome After Retro-Areolar Versus Peri-Tumoral Injection of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (SPIO) for Sentinel Lymph Node Detection in Breast Cancer Surgery. Ann Surg Oncol. 2019 May;26(5):1247-1253. doi: 10.1245/s10434-019-07239-5. Epub 2019 Mar 4.
• Background Karakatsanis A, Hersi AF, Pistiolis L, Olofsson Bagge R, Lykoudis PM, Eriksson S, Warnberg F; SentiNot Trialists Group. Effect of preoperative injection of superparamagnetic iron oxide particles on rates of sentinel lymph node dissection in women undergoing surgery for ductal carcinoma in situ (SentiNot study). Br J Surg. 2019 May;106(6):720-728. doi: 10.1002/bjs.11110. Epub 2019 Mar 6.
• Background Brown AS, Hunt KK, Shen J, Huo L, Babiera GV, Ross MI, Meric-Bernstam F, Feig BW, Kuerer HM, Boughey JC, Ching CD, Gilcrease MZ. Histologic changes associated with false-negative sentinel lymph nodes after preoperative chemotherapy in patients with confirmed lymph node-positive breast cancer before treatment. Cancer. 2010 Jun 15;116(12):2878-83. doi: 10.1002/cncr.25066.
• Background Greenwood HI, Wong JM, Mukhtar RA, Alvarado MD, Price ER. Feasibility of Magnetic Seeds for Preoperative Localization of Axillary Lymph Nodes in Breast Cancer Treatment. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2019 Oct;213(4):953-957. doi: 10.2214/AJR.19.21378. Epub 2019 Jun 5.

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