MINImal vs. MAXimal Invasive Axillary Staging and Treatment After Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy in Node Positive Breast Cancer:Protocol of a Dutch Multicenter Registry Study (MINIMAX)

Background : Node positive breast cancer (cN+) patients with an axillary pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NST) are not expected to benefit from axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). Therefore, less invasive axillary staging procedures have been introduced to establish response-guided treatment. However, evidence is lacking with regard to their oncologic safety and impact on quality of life (QoL). We hypothesize that if response-guided treatment is given, less invasive staging procedures are non-inferior to standard ALND in terms of oncologic safety, and superio... Mehr ...