Sentinel lymph node biopsy in melanoma patients: the medical oncologist's perspective.
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.
Queirolo
Paola
P
Division of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Research Institute, Genoa, Italy. paola.queirolo@istge.it
Taveggia
Paola
P
Gipponi
Marco
M
Sertoli
Mario Roberto
MR
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008545:Melanoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D021701:Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D015996:Survival Rate