Comparison of Axillary Dissection in Iranian Patients with Breast Cancer and other Countries

Introduction & Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women in many countries. Axillary dissection has an important role in prognosis, staging and probably treatment of breast cancer. Some experts believe that the number of lymph nodes involved is one of the most important factors in the prognosis of breast cancer. In this study we have reported data about tumor size, axillary dissection in patients referred for chemotherapy in 3 medical oncology centers in Iran. In this study we evaluated available data from 149 patients who had referred to the three centers. Data about patients’ demography, tumor size and axillary dissections were collected from their medical records. 128 out of 149 patients had complete data. The average age was 41.1±6.3 years, mean tumor size was 3.5±2.5 cm and the total numbers of dissected nodes were 9.7±5.2. Incidence of axillary metastasis was 63.3% and the total number of dissected node was 10.1± 5 in patients with node metastasis and 9.1±1.3 without node metastasis. The mean of tumor size in our patients was 3.5 cm which is larger than the case of western countries (1.8 cm). A relation between tumor size and the number of total dissected nodes is reported but in our study there was no relation between these two factors. Only 38% of our patients had more than 10 dissected nodes but in Australia and the USA it was 82% and 72.1% respectively. Therefore the number of patients with more than l0 dissected lymph nodes is much less than the case of western countries. So we think axillary dissection in Iran is less aggressive than the case of developed countries, but is the same as that of developing countries.