Predicting lymphatic drainage patterns and primary tumour location in patients with breast cancer
Evan I Blumgart, Roger F Uren, Poul M F Nielsen, Martyn P Nash and Hayley M Reynolds
Researchers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) have mapped breast cancer lymphoscintigraphy (LS) data from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH) Medical Centre onto a 3D anatomically based computer model of the skin and lymph nodes. This mapped data has enabled visualisation of the likely node fields for breast cancer metastasis. Data was mapped by Evan Blumgart at the ABI, supervised by Dr Hayley Reynolds, Assoc Prof Poul Nielsen and Assoc Prof Martyn Nash. LS data from the RPAH Medical Centre is courtesy of Prof Roger Uren MD.

BREAST REGION SELECTION TOOL:
Click on regions of the breast on the image below to display the potential sentinel lymph node fields that may receive breast cancer cells if the cancer has spread. The node field glyphs displayed are scaled in size according to the drainage probability, while the selected breast region is highlighted in red. The table of statistics details the percentage probabilities of drainage to each node field and tumour prevalence in the selected breast region along with 95% Bayesian confidence intervals (CIs) for these estimates. By default, the drainage probabilities from the entire breast are displayed. The primary tumour prevalences button allows for the viewing of the probabilities of a primary tumour in each of the breast regions. All percentage values on the model are rounded to 2 s.f.
Node field names
Toggle labels:
DRAINAGE STATISTICS:
Node Field
Estimate (%)
(95% CI)
Axilla
98.2
(97.6, 98.7)
Internal Mammary
35.3
(33.4, 37.3)
Supraclavicular
3.1
(2.4, 3.8)
Infraclavicular
1.7
(1.2, 2.3)
Interpectoral
0.7
(0.4, 1.1)
Interval
5.7
(4.8, 6.7)
TUMOUR PREVALENCE STATISTICS:
Breast Region
Estimate (%)
(95% CI)
Overall
100
(100, 100)

VIEW LYMPHATIC DRAINAGE PATTERNS OF SKIN:

Any questions or comments please email Dr Hayley Reynolds at h.reynolds@auckland.ac.nz