Sentinel Lymph Node: Detection, Procedures and Clinical Implications

This book gathers an overview of the sentinel lymph node biopsy procedure among different surgical settings (i.e., melanoma, breast, thyroid, vulva, endometrium, cervix, colon, anus, liver, gastric, urological and ovarian cancers). This book consists of eighteen chapters; the rationale and the purpose of this technique, which allows adequate lymph node staging while sparing patients from unnecessary complete lymph node dissections and the traditional harmful complications associated with them are discussed. Furthermore, this book outlines the technical aspects of the procedure (which are also accurately covered) from the various intraoperative sentinel node detection techniques to the subsequent sentinel lymph node analysis methods. Some new techniques for node detection, such as the Sentimag(R) technique (superparamagnetic iron oxide particles detected by a magneto-metric probe) and some new techniques for node analysis, such as the one-step nucleic acid amplification (OSNA), are accurately discussed. Finally, this book provides information also on preoperative lymph node diagnostics and sentinel lymph node biopsy perioperative complications in different nodal districts. In particular, the complications of sentinel node biopsy and for sentinel node dissection are accurately discussed with a particular focus on breast cancer, melanoma and gynecological cancers.