Lymphatic Drainage Patterns From the Breast

The existence of lymphatic drainage of the breast to axillary and extra-axillary sites has been known for centuries.1 Although also these latter nodes are known to sometimes contain metastatic disease, their removal has never been pursued enthusiastically. Interest in drainage patterns of breast cancer, however, is growing since the introduction of the sentinel node procedure. Lymphatic mapping allows visualization and identification of sentinel nodes and the possibility to document the drainage patterns. The aim of this study was to describe the drainage patterns in all breast cancer patients who underwent a sentinel node procedure at our institute. Our intratumoral tracer injection technique enables accurate visualization of drainage from the actual primary tumors.