Table 1.
Morphologic features of the metastatic tissue in the positive lymph nodes (n = 218).
Fig 1.
Photographs of metastatic tumor tissue in axillary lymph nodes demonstrating extra-nodal extension.
A, the partial type with foci of extra-nodal extension (arrows); B, complete type with total destruction of the lymph node capsule (x 200 magnification).
Table 2.
Extra-nodal extension and some characteristics of positive lymph nodes (n = 218).
Fig 2.
Photographs of metastatic tumor tissue in axillary lymph nodes demonstrating the diameters of extra-nodal extension.
A, circumferential diameter; B, perpendicular diameter (x 200 magnification).
Table 3.
Features of extra-nodal extension and some characteristics of positive lymph nodes.
Fig 3.
Kaplan-Meier curves showing the relationship between number of positive nodes (A), TD-MET (B), AVI (C), EVI (D) and time to first event.
The number of events/number of cases in each subgroup is given in parenthesis. Abbreviations; TD-MET, metastatic tumor diameter; AVI, afferent vascular invasion; EVI, efferent vascular invasion. One case with missing data on the number of positive nodes because of fused axillary nodes in a locally advanced breast cancer and three other cases were not included in the measurement of TD-MET as tumor was detected only in the afferent lymphatic vessels.
Fig 4.
Kaplan-Meier curves showing the relationship between types of ENE (A), number of ENE foci (B), CD-ENE (C), PD-ENE (D) and time to first event.
The number of events/number of cases in each subgroup is given in parenthesis. Abbreviations; ENE, extra-nodal extension; CD-ENE, circumferential diameter of extra-nodal extension; PD-ENE, perpendicular diameter of extra-nodal extension. One case had missing data on measurement of extra-nodal extension diameters because of extensive fat infiltration combined with inappropriate orientation of the section.
Table 4.
Multivariate survival analysis (Cox`s proportional hazards method) using time to first disease recurrence (DFS) as end point.
Number of events (46/115). Final model after including primary tumor diameter, histologic grade, no. of positive nodes, EVI, and perpendicular diameter of ENE.
Table 5.
Multivariate survival analysis (Cox`s proportional hazards method) using time to death of breast cancer (BCSS) as end point.
Number of events (25/115). Final model after including primary tumor diameter, histologic grade, no. of positive nodes, EVI, and perpendicular diameter of ENE