Staging tests determine the size and location of the cancer and whether it has spread. They also help with treatment planning.  

Sentinel Node Biopsy 

The standard treatment for Breast Cancer involves removal of the lymph nodes on the affected side to determine if the cancer has spread. Saint John’s Breast Center Director, Dr. Armando Giuliano, pioneered an Innovative Technique called Sentinel Node Biopsy, now used in cancer centers worldwide, which helps to more accurately determine the stage of the patient's cancer by detecting if it has spread to nearby lymph nodes - without using radical surgery. 

By injecting blue dye or radioisotope into the primary tumor and following it to the lymph nodes under the arm, the blue or radioactive node can be removed.  This is the same lymph node to which the cancer would have spread if it indeed did spread.  By looking at this blue or radioactive lymph node, the stage of the cancer can be determined without radical surgery. 

Sentinel Node Biopsy (lymphatic mapping) identifies, with extraordinary accuracy, the lymph node most likely to contain cancer cells that have migrated from the primary tumor. If that lymph node is cancer-free, it is highly likely that the other lymph nodes are also cancer-free and therefore there is no need to remove them. If that sentinel node is cancerous, then the surgeon and medical oncologist know that more aggressive treatment is required.