Premium
Sentinel lymph node biopsy in melanoma patients: the medical oncologist's perspective
Author(s) -
Queirolo Paola,
Taveggia Paola,
Gipponi Marco,
Sertoli Mario Roberto
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of surgical oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.201
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1096-9098
pISSN - 0022-4790
DOI - 10.1002/jso.20029
Subject(s) - medicine , biopsy , sentinel lymph node , melanoma , sentinel node , subclinical infection , stage (stratigraphy) , occult , dissection (medical) , lymph node , surgery , metastasis , adjuvant therapy , disease , radiology , oncology , cancer , pathology , breast cancer , paleontology , alternative medicine , cancer research , biology
With the advent of sentinel node (sN) biopsy in melanoma patients, elective lymph node dissection (ELND) can be considered an exceeded procedure. Regardless of the possible therapeutic benefits, sN biopsy efficiently predicts prognosis avoiding the morbidity rate of ELND. The importance of the sN is underlined by multivariate analyses, which show that the sN status represents the most important prognostic factor influencing disease‐free and distant disease‐free survival in patients with stage I and II melanoma. Moreover, sN biopsy provides a minimally invasive method for identifying those patients with subclinical nodal metastasis who actually have stage III disease, with a very high risk of occult distant metastases and who may benefit by adjuvant therapy. J. Surg. Oncol. 2004;85:162–165. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.