Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 02/17/2009
Risks associated with an SLNB include the following:
- Mild discomfort after the procedure.
- Lymphedema (swelling of the arm due to disruption of the lymphatic system after surgery).
- Damage to the nerves in the area of the biopsy.
- Temporary...
discoloration of the skin in the area of the dye injection. - False negative laboratory report. A false negative means that there is cancer in other lymph nodes in spite of the absence of cancer in the sentinel node. False negatives usually result from either poor timing of the dye injection, the way in which the pathologist prepared the tissue for examination, or the existence of previously undiscovered sentinel nodes.
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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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