title: Radio-guided sentinel node mapping in patients with superficial esophageal carcinoma: feasibility study.
abstract: The aim of this study was to assess whether the sentinel node concept could be applicable to clinically early carcinoma of the esophagus. We studied ten consecutive cT1N0 patients who underwent radical esophagectomy with regional lymph node dissection. On the day before surgery, 99m-Tc tin colloid was injected endoscopically around the primary tumor. Lymphoscintigraphy was also performed about three hours after injection. Immediately after surgery, the radioactivity of all dissected lymph nodes was measured with a hand-held gamma probe. The radioactivity and the metastatic status assessed by routine histopathologic examination were compared. A total of six patients had hot spots detected by lymphoscintigraphy, of which the detection rate was 60% (6 of 10). The ex vivo hot node detection rate was 90% (9 of 10). Three patients were found to have metastatic nodes. In one patient, sentinel node mapping failed to identify any hot spot or hot node. In the other two patients, the metastatic nodes did not correspond to hot nodes. The accuracy of hot node status was 77.8% (7 of 9), and the false-negative rate was 100% (2 of 2). The present study showed that radio-guided sentinel node detection is insufficiently reliable at present due to the high false-negative rate and low accuracy.
authors.affiliation: Division of Digestive and General Surgery, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata City, Japan. sugishin@med.niigata-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Shin-Ichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kosugi
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakagawa
authors.forename: Tatsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kanda
authors.forename: Ikuo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Odano
authors.forename: Kazuhito
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yajima
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ohashi
authors.forename: Katsuyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hatakeyama
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D016629:Esophagectomy; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D021701:Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy / Q000379:methods*; D017556:Technetium Compounds; D017971:Tin Compounds
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D017556:Technetium Compounds; D017971:Tin Compounds; C033493:technetium Tc 99m tin colloid