Table 1.
Patients and tumour characteristics in 133 breast cancer subjects with micrometastatic and macrometastatic sentinel lymph node. Data are expressed as frequencies and proportions for categorical variables, median (range) for continuous variables
| All patients (groups 1 and 2) n (%) |
Micrometastases (group 1) n (%) |
Macrometastases (group 2) n (%) |
χ2 test p-value for groups 1 and 2 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 133 (100%) | 41 (30.8%) | 92 (69.2%) | ||
| Age (years), median (range) | 56 (35–83) | 51 (35.0–75.0) | 58 (38.0–83.0) | 0.019a |
| Surgery | ||||
| Lumpectomy | 109 (81.9%) | 33 (80.5) | 76 (82.6) | – |
| Quadrantectomy | 24 (18.1%) | 8 (19.5) | 16 (17.4) | – |
| Pathological stage | ||||
| Tis | 1 (0.8) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (1.1) | 0.286 |
| T1a | 1 (0.8) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (1.1) | |
| T1b | 28 (21.1) | 10 (24.4) | 18 (19.6) | |
| T1c | 80 (60.1) | 23 (56.1) | 57 (61.9) | |
| T2 | 23 (17.2) | 8 (19.5) | 15 (16.3) | |
| Histological type | ||||
| Ductal | 109 (82.0) | 36 (87.8) | 73 (79.3) | 0.823 |
| Lobular | 10 (7.5) | 1 (2.4) | 9 (9.8) | |
| Other | 14 (10.5) | 4 (9.8) | 10 (10.9) | |
| Grade | ||||
| 1 | 71 (53.4) | 22 (53.7) | 49 (53.3) | 0.818 |
| 2 | 54 (40.6) | 15 (36.6) | 39 (42.4) | |
| 3 | 8 (6.0) | 4 (9.8) | 4 (4.3) | |
| Molecular subtypes | ||||
| Luminal A | 88 (66.2) | 28 (68.3) | 60 (65.2) | 0.113 |
| Luminal B (HER2 negative) | 30 (22.5) | 8 (19.5) | 22 (23.9) | |
| Luminal B (HER2 positive) | 10 (7.5) | 3 (7.3) | 7 (7.6) | |
| HER2+ | 1 (0.8) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (1.1) | |
| Basal-like | 4 (3.0) | 2 (4.9) | 2 (2.2) | |
| Nodal ratio | ||||
| 1/1 | 26 (19.5) | 12 (29.3) | 14 (15.2) | 0.627 |
| 1/2 | 52 (39.1) | 14 (34.1) | 38 (41.3) | |
| 1/3 | 24 (18.0) | 7 (17.1) | 17 (18.5) | |
| 1/4 | 11 (8.3) | 5 (12.2) | 6 (6.5) | |
| 1/5 | 1 (0.8) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (1.1) | |
| 2/2 | 8 (6.0) | 2 (4.9) | 6 (6.5) | |
| 2/3 | 8 (6.0) | 1 (2.4) | 7 (7.6) | |
| 2/4 | 2 (1.5) | 0 (0.0) | 2 (2.2) | |
| 2/5 | 1 (0.8) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (1.1) | |
| Adjuvant systemic therapy | ||||
| Chemotherapy | 55 | 10 | 45 | – |
| Trastuzumab | 11 | 2 | 9 | – |
| Endocrine therapy | 126 | 38 | 88 | – |
ap-value derived from Whitney–Mann U-test