This is a prospective observational device-validation study in patients undergoing breast cancer surgery with axillary evaluation. Augmented-reality goggle-based near-infrared fluorescence imaging with ICG is used to visualize and mark candidate sentinel lymph nodes. Intraoperative near-infrared imaging may be performed by an observer who is not the operating surgeon, solely to assess device performance; observer findings are not communicated to the operating surgeon before wound closure and do not influence the operation. All marked nodes and removed tissue undergo histopathology, which serves as the blinded reference standard. Device performance is assessed on consecutive eligible patients within defined enrollment windows; for each near-infrared imaging device, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value, and node-level ROC analysis are estimated against final histopathology, with confidence intervals accounting for clustering of nodes within patients. The study is non-interventional: the imaging does not alter surgical management.
