• 2/28/2007
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • Bruce Sylvester
  • Doctor’s Guide (www.docguide.com)

Sentinel node biopsy (SNB) is an accurate method of assessing the neck status of patients with squamous cell cancer grade T1T2 NO (early stage tumours) of the oral cavity, researchers report.

The findings were presented in an oral session here on February 24th at the International Meeting on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology, sponsored by the European Head and Neck Society (EHNS) and the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO).

“We saw a remarkable lack of false negatives in our use of sentinel node biopsy for assessing the patients. It is a viable procedure,” said lead investigator and presenter Gerard Mamelle, MD, clinical oncologist, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France.

In the first part of their study, the investigators included 55 subjects; 53 of the subjects underwent SNB and an elective neck dissection (END) during the same surgery.

The investigators compared results of pathological examinations with stepped serial sectioning and immunohistochemistry of sentinel nodes to results of routine pathologal examinations of remaining END nodes.

They found positive sentinel nodes in 12 subjects, and no false positives among them. For up to 3 years after the tests, there was no node recurrence for any patient with negative sentinel node findings.

In a second part of their study, 48 new subjects underwent SNB without END. Sentinel node was not found in 4 subjects. Eleven of the remaining 44 subjects (25%) had a positive sentinel node. And follow-up showed node recurrence in 2 subjects with negative sentinel nodes; a pathological reexamination revealed a micrometastasis in sentinel node of 1 of these subjects.

For the 103 subjects from both parts of the study, SNB failure rate was less than 2%.

The authors concluded that, “SNB is a viable procedure. Failure rate is less than in traditional END.”

Source:
Presentation title: Results of Prospective Study of Sentinel Node Biopsy in Oral Cavity Tumours. Abstract 45