Evaluating Operative Times for Intraoperative Conversion of Axillary Node Biopsy to Axillary Lymph Node Dissection with Immediate Lymphatic Reconstruction.

 Intraoperative frozen section of sentinel/targeted nodes extended operative time by approximately 80 minutes in patients undergoing mastectomy with breast reconstruction and conversion of SLNB to ALND/ILR. Intraoperative conversion to ALND adds unpredictability to the operation as well as additional potentially unaccounted operative time. However, staging ALND requires an additional operation.