Correlation of age with AXLN CT in non breast cancer patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Quantitative Research proposal: Correlation between age and the axillary lymph node cortical thickness (ALNCT) on ultrasound, in patients attending the symptomatic breast clinic, with no cancer or any condition resulting in reactive nodes.
IRAS ID
205424
Contact name
Marcus T Jackson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Kingston & St George's Joint faculty
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 2 months, 1 days
Research summary
This will be a study of the armpit(axillary) lymphnode thickness (ALNCT), measured on ultrasound in patients attending the symptomatic breast clinic (SBC). Patients with normal/benign breast findings will be offered to participate in the research; patients with any condition that may result in reactive nodes or suspicion of cancer will be excluded from the study.
The study aims to detect a correlation between the ALNCT and age to identify normal thickness cut offs in different age groups. The result may impact the number of necessary axillary lymphnode biopsies performed to detect metastsis.
Currently, same threshold applies to all age groups to decide if lymphnode needs to be biopsied. As part of routine triple assessment offered to all the patients attending the one stop breast symptomatic clinic, the concerned breast and armpit if need be is scanned. They are informed at the beginning that an ultrasound will be part of the assessment. During this study, the only addition will be that the ALNCT will be measured in all the patients, which was otherwise done only in the abnormal/thick looking nodes.
The measurement will be entered in a spread sheet linked with an alpha-numeric code for each patient. These will be kept secure on the researcher's password protected hard drive on the Trust computer.
Once the target number of sample size has been achieved, the data will be analysed using the SPSS version 20. The data will be stored for an additional 10years after the completion of the study.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/1425
Date of REC Opinion
28 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion