To explore the diagnostic value of ultrasonography guided with fine needle aspiration biopsy of sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) of breast cancer.

The clinical data of 80 patients with single breast cancer underwent the surgical resection from December 2015 to December 2019 were analyzed retrospectively. All of 80 patients received preoperative contrast-enhanced ultrasound test as well as fine needle aspiration biopsy. The postoperative pathological diagnosis was considered as the gold standard. Statistical analysis were performed by using SPSS20.0 software. The degree of sensitivity, specific, and accuracy data were analyzed by using χ² test. The ROC curve of ultrasonography guided with fine needle aspiration biopsy of SLN was plotted, and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated. A P value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant difference.

The positive rate of pathological diagnosis of axillary lymph node was 91.3% (73/80). 67 patients had axillary lymph node metastasis under contrast-enhanced ultrasound. The diagnostic accuracy was 87.5% (70/80), sensitivity was 89.0% (65/73), and the specificity was 71.4% (5/7). Fine needle aspiration biopsy results showed that 63 cases of positive, while 17 cases of negative. The diagnostic accuracy was 82.5% (66/80), sensitivity was 83.6% (61/73), and the specificity was 71.4% (5/7). The guided test results of the two methods showed that 71 patients were diagnosed as positive and 9 patients were diagnosed as negative. The diagnostic accuracy was 92.5% (74/80), sensitivity was 94.5% (69/73), and the specificity was 71.4% (5/7). The ROC curve was drawn for the diagnosis of SLN in patients with breast cancer. The results showed that the AUC (0.891) of the guided detection was significantly greater than that of ultrasound contrast AUC (0.835) and fine needle aspiration biopsy (0.758 ) (P<0.05).

Ultrasonography guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy could improve the accuracy and sensitivity of the sentinel lymph node diagnosis of patients with breast cancer. It has high diagnostic value and is worthy of clinical application.