Can We Identify or Exclude Extensive Axillary Nodal Involvement in Breast Cancer Patients Preoperatively?

Table 3

Summary of studies on MRI to exclude patients with extensive nodal involvement.

Study		Year	Field strength	No. of patients	No. (%) of patients with extensive nodal involvement	No. of false negatives	No. of true negatives	NPV (%)	FNR (%)
Studies in which extensive nodal involvement was defined as pN2-3
Unenhanced MRI (T1w/T2w)
Nijnatten van et al. [27]	Reader 1	2016	1.5 T	377	16 (4.2%)	3	318	99	19
	Reader 2	2016	1.5 T	377	16 (4.2%)	2	297	99	13
DCE-MRI
Hwang et al. [40]		2013	1.5 T	349	18 (5.2%)	4	272	99	22
Hyun et al. [41]		2016	3.0 T	310	12 (3.9%)	1	256	99.6	8
Studies in which extensive nodal involvement was defined as ≥3 positive nodes
Unenhanced MRI (T1w/T2w)
Barco et al. [16]		2016	1.5 T	1351	182 (13.5%)	100	1066	91	55
DCE-MRI
Hieken et al. [17]		2013	1.5 T	505	52 (10.3%)	10	327	97	19
Kim et al. [18]		2019	3.0 T	256	17 (6.6%)	2	179	99	12

MRI = magnetic resonance imaging; DCE-MRI = dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (using gadolinium-based contrast agents); No. of false negatives = number of patients with normal/negative MRI but histologically extensive nodal involvement; no. of true negatives = number of patients with normal/negative MRI and histologically no/limited nodal involvement; NPV = negative predictive value; FNR = false-negative rate.