ABSTRACT
Objective:To examine the clinical value of combining indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence navigation with blue dye in sen-tinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for patients with breast cancer. Methods:A total of 89 patients with early-stage breast cancer who met the inclusion criteria were admitted at Shantou Central Hospital, Guangdong from May 2013 to April 2014. In phase one, ICG and blue dye were applied in all 53 patients, and then SLNB and axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) were performed based on fluores-cence signal or visual sense of the lymph nodes. In phase two, 36 patients with early-stage breast cancer were included. ALND was omitted when sentinel lymph nodes were frozen showing negative result. Rates of detection, accuracy, and false-negative were calcu-lated. Results:A total of 89 patients were monitored, of which the total rate of SLNB detection was 96.6%(86/89). In the validation pe-riod, the rates of detection, accuracy, and false-negative were 94.3%(50/53) 98.0%(49/50), and 2.6%(1/38), respectively. In the alter-ative period, the rates of detection reached 100%. Of the 196 sentinel lymph nodes, 179 showed fluorescence signal, 142 exhibited blue dying, 54 only demonstrated fluorescence signals, and 45 demonstrated metastasis with five signaling fluorescence. About 24.7%of patients were diagnosed with SLN metastasis (22/89), where SLNB in two patients showed fluorescence signal but without blue dye. No ipsilateral lymph node relapsed were observed during a median follow up of 25 months. Conclusion:Combination of ICG fluores-cence navigation with blue dye in SLNB is safe for patients with breast cancer.