With breast cancer, the stage of the disease is determined based the size of the tumor, metastasis to other parts of the body and an accurate diagnosis of lymph node metastasis, and this information is used to determine the appropriate treatment method. If breast cancer has metastasized to the lymph nodes, the risk of the cancer spreading to other organs is high.
However, performing a resection of the lymph nodes, which are spread across a wide area of the body, can have negative post-operative effects on the patient, such as swelling and numbness. For this reason, it is important to perform a careful intraoperative diagnosis to determine whether resection is necessary.
The lymph nodes that are particularly susceptible to breast cancer metastasis are located below the armpits. For intraoperative testing, methods that minimize the resection area when metastasis is not present are growing more popular.
Sysmex has developed a technology that allows for the highly precise and rapid (30–40 minutes) determination of breast cancer lymph node metastasis. This allows test results to be provided swiftly for intraoperative diagnosis.