[Preoperative and intraoperative scintigraphic detection of sentinel node]

It is known that the malignant primary tumor site has a specific lymphatic drainage, all the time intermediate, however, by a first lymph node named sentinel node. This can be situated in some typical or atypical topographic area and can be or not clinically evident. If the sentinel node is not invaded by the metastatic cells there is no metastatic risk for other lymphatic nodes, so the surgical treatment is not necessary to involve the corresponding lymphatic area dissection. An imagine, noninvasive detection of the involvement of the sentinel node in the spread of cancer could be related with the surgical decision to perform (or not) fully regional lymphadenectomy (based on biopsy result of such positive detected nodes) allowing only a tumorectomy in the first stages of neoplasia. For the case of scintigraphic method to detect the sentinel node, the performance depend on the development of radiotracers, the modification of the lymphoscintigraphic mapping techniques protocols, and the development and improvement of detectors.