Prognostic Significance of the Number of Removed and Metastatic Lymph Nodes and Lymph Node Ratio in Breast Carcinoma Patients with 1–3 Axillary Lymph Node(s) Metastasis

We evaluated the prognostic significance of lymph node ratio (LNR), number of metastatic lymph nodes divided by number of removed nodes in 924 breast carcinoma patients with 1–3 metastatic axillary lymph node(s). The most significant LNR threshold value separating patients in low- and high-risk groups with significant survival difference was 0.20 for disease-free survival ( P < 0.001), 0.30 for locoregional recurrence-free survival ( P < 0.001), and 0.15 for distant metastasis-free survival ( P < 0.001), and the patients with lower LNR had better survival. All three LNR threshold values had independent prognostic significance in Cox analysis ( P < 0.001 for all three of them). In conclusion, LNR is a useful tool in separating breast carcinoma patients with 1–3 metastatic lymph node(s) into low- and high-risk prognostic groups.