Back ground:  Breast cancer is one of the commonest cancers in female worldwide and in India. Lymph node metastasis is one of the most important factors for staging as well as prognosis of the cancer. Since 75 percentage of lymphatic drainage is to axillary lymph node, axillary metastasis is very significant in prognosis. The primary objective of our study is to find out the incidence of axillary lymph node in carcinoma breast, prognostic significance of age of the patient and the significance of tumor size in the prognosis of carcinoma breast. Secondary objective was to find out the prevalence of breast cancer among various age groups. Materials and methods: this was a retrospective study conducted in the department of surgery, medical college, Trivandrum, during the period 2013   to 2015, in 272 patients who underwent modified radical mastectomy for carcinoma breast. Exclusion criteria were simple mastectomy and breast conservation surgery. Results: The lymph node metastasis was found to be increased in the age group 26–35, after that with increasing age lymph node metastasis decreased. The significance level was p<0.001.  Axillary lymph node involvement increased with size of tumor. The significance level was p<0.001. Conclusion: Tumor more than 2cm has got increased axillary metastatic potential, the involvement increases linearly with size of tumor