[Combined ROLL and sentinel lymph node: a new strategy in radio-guided surgery]

Radioguided surgery for the treatment of breast cancer is becoming the gold standard for both diagnosis and therapy. The main rule in using ROLL is perfect localization of non-palpable lesions and minimal invasiveness of excision. The same criteria apply to the sentinel lymph node technique. Clinically occult breast lesions, which require an exact histological diagnosis, are most frequently detected as the result of mammographic screening. The authors show that the ROLL technique for histological diagnosis may alter the subdermal lymphatic drainage so that the sentinel node cannot be found at later surgery. The aim of this study was to report the authors' experience with a combined ROLL and sentinel lymph node biopsy technique for the diagnosis and treatment of occult cancer of the breast.