title: Optical techniques for the intraoperative assessment of nodal status.
abstract: The lymphatic system is an important pathway in the metastatic spread of many malignancies and a key prognostic indicator. Nondestructive assessment of the nodal status during surgery could limit the amount of lymph nodes that need to be resected and allow for immediate regional lymphadenectomy during sentinel lymph node biopsy procedures. This review looks into the possibilities of conventional medical imaging methods that are capable of intraoperative nodal assessment and discusses multiple newly developed optical techniques. The physical background behind these techniques is reviewed and a concise overview of their main advantages and disadvantages is provided. These recent innovations show that while the application of optical modalities for intraoperative nodal staging is not yet applied routinely, there is reason enough to expect their introduction in the near future.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Photonic Imaging Group, MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology & Technical Medicine, Science & Technology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Diederik J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Grootendorst
authors.forename: Wiendelt
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Steenbergen
authors.forename: Srirang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Manohar
authors.forename: Theo J M
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Ruers
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D007432:Intraoperative Period; D008027:Light; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D061848:Optical Imaging; D061088:Photoacoustic Techniques; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence