The Situation of Axillary Lymph Node Metastasis and Progmosis of Breast Cancer

Four hundred and eithteen patients with primary breast cancer were subjected to a study of evaluating the relationship between the stage of lymph node metastasis and the diameter and site of the primary tumor. And another immunoshitochemical study on the lymph node micrometastasis was conducted in 185 patients with node-negative (n0) breast cancer, where monoclonal antibodies to epithelial membrane antigen (EMA) and mucin-like carcinoma antigen (MCA) were used. It was found that there was a positive correlation of 0.9946 between the rate of metastasis to the axillary lymph nodes and the size of the primary breast cancer. Even when the tumor diameter was 1.0cm or longer, the metastatic rate to the lymph nodes was 14.7%, which suggests an early onset of lymph node metastasis. EMA and MCA stains for those 185 cases of n0 breast cancer revealed only three positive tests. Among the cases of recurrent n0 breast canoer, there was no micrometastasis. From these findings, it is presumed that n0 brest cancer recurs not necessarily by way of the axillary lymph nodes, because no micrometastasis have been found. This indicates that metastatic breast cancer may be a systemic disease in which blood circulation, as Fisher and his coworkers have advocated, plays an important role.