Type of Surgery
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Last updated: 02/17/2009
Compared to axillary lymph node dissection, sentinel lymph node biopsy has a significantly lower rate of complications. One study found that only 2.6% of patients who had SLNB developed lymphedema, compared to 27% of patients who had ALND. Another...
study found that 71% of SLNB patients were able to return to normal activity within 4 days of the procedure, compared to 7% of the ALND patients.
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The sentinel lymph node is the hypothetical first lymph node or group of nodes reached by metastasizing cancer cells from a tumor.
The concept of the sentinel lymph node is important because of the advent of the sentinel lymph node biopsy technique, also known as a sentinel node procedure. This technique is used in the staging of certain types of cancer to see if they have spread to any lymph nodes, since lymph node metastasis is one of the most important prognostic signs.
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