Tenon Axillary Scoring System of Barranger et al for Predicting Metastasis Status of Non-Sentinel Axillary Lymph Nodes in a Woman with Breast Cancer

 

Patient selection: woman with breast cancer and sentinel axillary lymph node biopsy with at least 1 node positive

 

Parameters:

(1) diameter of the primary tumor in mm

(2) percent of sentinel lymph nodes with metastases

(3) macrometastasis in the sentinel lymph nodes

 

Parameter	Finding	Points
diameter of the primary tumor	<= 10 mm	0
	11 to 20 mm	1.5
	> 20 mm	3
percent of involved sentinel lymph nodes	< 50%	0
	50 to 99%	1
	100%	2
macrometastasis in sentinel nodes	none	0
	one or more	2

 

total score =

= SUM(points for all 3 parameters)

 

Interpretation:

• minimum score: 0

• maximum score: 7

• The higher the score the more likely nonsentinel lymph nodes are involved.

• Gur et al found that a patient with a score <= 3.5 had about a 3% chance of having tumor in a nonsentinel lymph node, while a score <= 4 had a 5% chance.