Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy In The Management Of Breast Cancer: Is it feasible in low- resource countries?

Abstract

Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) has been traditionally a routine component of the management of breast cancer. However ALND is associated with a significant increased risk of long term arm morbidity (lymphoedema, pain, numbness and motion restriction).Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a less invasive alternative to ALND for axillary staging of breast cancer. The concept of SLNB is based on identification and excision of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) by probe guided gamma detector after peritumour injection of radio active substance (Tec99) and/or visualisation of these node(s) after peritumour injection of vital blue dyes (patent blue, iso sulfur blue) in the clinically lymph node negative and early breast carcinoma (T1 and small T