- If the patient has had a negative sentinel node biopsy, then no further axillary dissection is required, and the patient is determined to be node-negative; if an axillary dissection, without a sentinel node biopsy, is performed to determine nodal status, at least six axillary lymph nodes must be removed and analyzed and negative for the patient to be considered node-negative; axillary nodes with single cells or tumor clusters =< 0.2 mm by either hematoxylin and eosin stain (H&E) or immunohistochemistry (IHC), will be considered node-negative; lymph nodes positive for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with tumor cells/clusters =< 0.2 mm will be considered node-negative; any axillary lymph node with tumor clusters > 0.2 mm will be considered positive