Racial disparities in adoption of axillary sentinel lymph node biopsy and lymphedema risk in women with breast cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Racial disparities exist in many aspects of breast cancer care. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was developed to replace axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for staging early breast cancer to minimize complications. Racial disparities in the use of SLNB remain incompletely characterized, and their effect on lymphedema risk is not known.

Objective

To determine racial differences in SLNB use among patients with pathologically node-negative breast cancer during the period when SLNB became the preferred method for axillary staging as well as whether such differences affect lymphedema risk.

Design, setting, and participants

A retrospective study was conducted using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare-linked database from 2002 through 200

SUBMITTER: Black DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5853102 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature