RESUMEN
Objective:To explore the significance of elevating cervical flap before vital-dye injection in identifying blue-stained nodes receiving lymphatic drainage in rabbit's tongue, so as to provide raw data for normalizing vital-dye injection in sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) during tongue-carcinoma treatment. Methods: 64 adult rabbits were randomly divided into four groups according to the injecting sites: tongue-tip, tongue-lateral, tongue-center and tongue-root. Four doses of methylene blue-0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 ml were chosen and injected into 4 tongues in every group, 2 of them were injected before and after the elevation of cervical flap respectively. Time was recorded according to the time points of colored and discolored lymphatic duct and nodes. Results:①The overall success rate in localizing blue-stained node was 93.75%(60/64). ②In the success cases in group elevating cervical flap just before injecting methylene blue, all experiments had the time records of lymphatics and nodes' turning blue; while the counterpart group did not show any blue staining. ③All the blue stained nodes were found in lymph nodeⅠto Ⅲ local area. Conclusion:t may be dependable to utilize methylene blue as tracer in the tongue carcinoma SLNB. Elevation of cervical flap before injecting methylene blue is necessary and practicable in tongue carcinoma SLNB.