Obesity influences outcome of sentinel lymph node biopsy in XXXX .

@entity1 @entity0 @entity4482 @entity4298
BACKGROUND: Sentinel lymph node biopsy is a rapidly emerging standard of care for staging the axilla in invasive @entity0 . Factors influencing success must be identified to understand the procedure's limitations and challenges. Increasing body mass with age has an inverse relationship to success. A proportion of @entity4298 biopsy @entity1 are both senior and overweight, so measurement of the body mass to age relationship is essential. STUDY DESIGN: We reviewed mapping successes and failures in 2,495 @entity4298 biopsy procedures performed between September 1996 and June 2001. Clinical stage T1 N0 to T3 N0 @entity0 cases were included. We used a combined technique ( @entity4482 ) to detect SLNs. Failure was defined as the inability to identify any nodes with either blue dye or by in vivo counts. Body- mass index (BMI) for each @entity1 was measured by height and weight data (kg/m(2)), and cases were stratified by BMI and age. RESULTS: Among 2,495 cases, there were 62 failed and 2,433 successful mappings (failure rate = 2.48%). Mean age, weight, and BMI were significantly higher in the failure group. The success of @entity4298 biopsy was inversely related to BMI (r = -0.98, p = 0.002). When stratified by @entity1 age (< 50 versus > or =50 years), this relationship was more pronounced in the > or = 50 group. Multivariate analysis of age, weight, and BMI found age (p = 0.011) and BMI (p = 0.00001) to be predictive of @entity4298 mapping success, with weight alone not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing age and BMI do not appear to be contraindications for @entity4298 biopsy. Rather, surgeons should be aware that increasing body mass and age are potential risk factors for a failed procedure, in which case a completion axillary node dissection for staging is required.
