What we learned in axillary management of breast cancer patients at the American society of clinical oncology (ASCO) 2020 virtual meeting? The EUBREAST point of view

Maria Luisa Gasparri; Philip Poortmans; Maggie Banys-Paluchowski; Eduard-Alexandru Bonci; Rosa Di Micco; Rosaria Condorelli; Zoltan Matrai; Peter Dubsky; Oreste Davide Gentilini; Thorsten Kuehn

doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100708

What we learned in axillary management of breast cancer patients at the American society of clinical oncology (ASCO) 2020 virtual meeting? The EUBREAST point of view

EClinicalMedicine. 2021 Jan 14:31:100708. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100708. eCollection 2021 Jan.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University of the Italian Switzerland (USI), Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland.
² Department of Radiation Oncology, Iridium Kankernetwerk, Wilrijk-Antwerp, Belgium.
³ Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk-Antwerp, Belgium.
⁴ Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Asklepios Klinik Barmbek, Hamburg, Germany.
⁵ Department of Oncology, "Iuliu Hatieganu" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
⁶ Department of Surgical Oncology, "Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuta" Institute of Oncology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
⁷ Breast Surgery Unit, San Raffaele University Hospital, Milan, Italy.
⁸ Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
⁹ Institute of Oncology of Southern Switzerland (IOSI), Bellinzona, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Department of Breast and Sarcoma Surgery, National Institute of Oncology, Budapest, Hungary.
¹¹ Breast Center St. Anna, Lucerne, Switzerland.
¹² Interdisciplinary Breast Center, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Klinikum Esslingen, Germany.

Abstract

In 2020, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting was held as a virtual conference. Overall, 461 abstracts focused on breast cancer management. As European Breast Cancer Association of Surgical Trialists (EUBREAST) we summarize and comment the results of these abstracts dealing with axillary management in breast cancer patients and offer an interpretation on how these findings may be incorporated into clinical practice and further research.

Keywords: Axillary dissection; Breast cancer; Micrometastasis; Primary systemic treatment; Sentinel lymph node biopsy.