Locally advanced breast cancer patients with clinical assessed positive axillary lymph node (cN+) who receive neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NST) will be enrolled in this study. Before NST, one of the suspected lymph nodes will be subjected to ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy (CNB) or fine needle aspiration (FNA), and a locating clip will be placed. Meanwhile, a small amount of Kanarine (Carbon Nanoparticles Suspension Injection) will be injected into or around the cortex of the locating lymph node as well as other positive lymph nodes. All patients will be confirmed to have axillary lymph node metastasis by pathologic or cytologic examination. After NST, FNA will be performed again for the lymph nodes labelled with previous locating clip. During the operation, the clip labelled lymph nodes were identified with carbon and sent to pathology separately. Meanwhile, the remaining carbon labelled lymph nodes were also separately examined. Axillary lymph node dissection will be performed in all patients. The detection rate of labelled lymph node will be record, and the pathological results of re-FNA of labelled lymph nodes will be compared with postoperative pathological results. Meanwhile, we will also analysis whether carbon labelled lymph node biopsy could predict the overall status of axillary lymph nodes after NST.
To explore the feasibility of target biopsy of carbon nanoparticles labelled lymph node after neoadjuvant systemic therapy for cN+ breast cancer, and evaluate whether it can accurately predict axillary lymph node status after neoadjuvant systemic therapy.