Fig. 2

Consort diagram. A total of 91 patients with resectable, early-stage breast cancer, diagnosed as cT1–2, N0, M0, underwent sentinel lymph node biopsy and were treated with NAC. Nineteen (20.9%) of 91 patients who underwent sentinel lymph node biopsy before NAC had metastasis, and three of them were transferred to a different institution before surgery. Thus, 16 cases underwent axillary lymph node dissection at the time of breast cancer surgery