Patient-reported outcomes one year after positive sentinel lymph node biopsy with or without axillary lymph node dissection in the randomized SENOMAC trial

Introduction: This report evaluates whether health related quality of life (HRQoL) and patient-reported arm morbidity one year after axillary surgery are affected by the omission of axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). Methods: The ongoing international non-inferiority SENOMAC trial randomizes clinically node-negative breast cancer patients (T1-T3) with 1-2 sentinel lymph node (SLN) macrometastases to completion ALND or no further axillary surgery. For this analysis, the first 1181 patients enrolled in Sweden and Denmark between March 2015, and June 2019, were eligible. Data extraction from the trial database was on November 2020. This report covers the secondary outcomes of the SENOMAC trial: HRQoL and patient-reported arm morbidity. The EORTC QLQC30, EORTC QLQ-BR23 and Lymph-ICF questionnaires were completed in the early postoperative phase and at one-year follow-up. Adjusted one-year mean scores and mean differences between the groups are presented corrected for multiple testing.

Automated summary

This report evaluates the impact of axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) on health related quality of life (HRQoL) and patient-reported arm morbidity one year after breast cancer surgery. The study found that ALND did not have a negative impact on HRQoL and could reduce arm morbidity in patients.