OBJECTIVETo evaluate the intraoperative touch imprint cytology as an diagnostic method of sentinel lymph node for breast cancer patient.

METHODSSentinel lymph node biopsy was performed in 105 selected early breast cancer patients, and sentinel lymph node was identified in 101 (96.19%) of these patients. Axillary lymph node dissection was also performed in almost all the patients. All the sentinel lymph nodes were cut into 2-3 mm pieces along the long axis. Touch imprint was made of each piece of the sentinel lymph node, then air-dried, and finally stained with H&E. Intraoperative touch imprint cytology results were compared with the final paraffin H&E pathology. All sentinel nodes were cut into 4 microm sections every 100-microm interval, and the series sections were stained with H&E.

RESULTS202 sentinel lymph nodes were identified in 101 breast cancer patients. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, negative predictive value of intraoperative imprint cytology for 202 sentinel nodes was 92.1%, 98.8%, 97.5%, 94.6% and 98.2%, respectively; which was 89.3%, 98.6%, 96.0%, 96.2% and 96.0%, respectively in the 101 patients with identified sentinel node. Compared with the series sections, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, negative predictive value of intraoperative imprint cytology for sentinel nodes was 83.3%, 98.8%, 95.5%, 94.6% and 95.8%, respectively; and it was 81.3%, 100.0%, 94.1%, 100.0% and 92.0%, respectively in 101 patients with identified sentinel node.

CONCLUSIONTouch imprint cytology is a simple, effective and rapid method for intraoperative pathological evaluation of sentinel lymph node for breast cancer patient, which has a high concordance with the paraffin results, and can provide accurate and rapid diagnosis information for the surgeon during operation.