Clinical Effectiveness of Intraoperative Sentinel Node Biopsy in N0 Tongue Cancers: A Preliminary Report / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) seems to have the potential to change our attitude toward the surgical treatment of cN0-staged necks in the near future. If SLN localization can predict which patient requires a neck dissection, then such neck dissections may be avoided in patients with negative sentinel nodes, thus reducing the associated cosmetic deformities and shoulder dysfunction. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and predictive ability of the SLN localization technique for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. MATERIALS AND METHOD: We tried to localize the SLN with the lymphoscintigraphy preoperatively and the gamma probe intraoperatively, excised it, and performed frozen sections in 6 patients with lateral T1-T2, N0, and M0 squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. In 3 of them, we performed supraomohyoid neck dissection. RESULTS: We localized the SLN in 6/6 with lymphoscintigraphy and 5/6 with gamma probe. The pathologic results of the frozen sections of SLN and neck dissection specimen were all negative, with the negative predictive value of SLNB being 100%. CONCLUSION: Our preliminary investigation shows that SLN localization is technically feasible in the head and neck surgery and is predictive of cervical metastasis.