Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 02/17/2009
Some cancer patients should not be given an SLNB. They include women with cancer in more than one part of the breast; women who have had previous breast surgery, including plastic surgery; women with breast cancer in advanced stages; and women who...
have had radiation therapy. Melanoma patients who have undergone wide excision (removal of surrounding skin as well as the tumor) of the original skin cancer are also not candidates for an SLNB.
Apart from evaluating the patient's fitness for an SLNB, no additional preparation is necessary.
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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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