AUTHOR=Brambilla Tatiana , Fiamengo Barbara , Tinterri Corrado , Testori Alberto , Grassi Massimo Maria , Sciarra Amedeo , Abbate Tommaso , Gatzemeier Wolfgang , Roncalli Massimo , Di Tommaso Luca 

TITLE=One-Step Nucleic Acid Amplification in Breast Cancer Sentinel Lymph Node: A Single Institutional Experience and a Short Review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 2 - 2015

YEAR=2015

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2015.00037

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2015.00037

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=Sentinel lymph node (SLN) examination is a standard in breast cancer patients, with several methods employed along its 20-years history, the last one represented by OSNA. The latter is a intra-operative molecular assay searching for CK19 mRNA as a surrogate of metastatic cells. 
Our 3-years experience with OSNA (1122 patients) showed results overlapping those recorded in the same Institution with a morphological evaluation (930 patients) of SLN. In detail the data of OSNA were almost identical to those observed with standard post-operative procedure in terms of patients with positive SLN (30%) and micrometastatic/macrometastatic involvement of SLN (respectively 38-45% and 62-55%). By contrast when OSNA was compared to the standard intra-operatory procedure it was superior in terms of accuracy, prompting the use of this molecular assay as a very valid and reproducible for intra-operative evaluation of  SLN.
Further possibilities prompting the use of OSNA range from adhesion to quality control programs, saving of medical time, ability to predict, during surgery, additional nodal metatastis and molecular bio-banking.