Feasibility of sentinel lymph node radiolocalization in neck node-negative oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

We examined the reliability of the use of lymphoscintigraphy (LS) and a hand-held gamma probe (GP) to identify the sentinel lymph node (SLN), and sequentially determined the feasibility of SLN radiolocalization in clinical neck node-negative oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients. A radiolabel with the unfiltered (99m)Tc tin colloid was injected submucosally around the primary site followed by LS at 2-hour intervals. Preoperative localization was performed with GP. After en bloc removal of the regional lymphatics, histopathologic results for the nodes were compared with the SLN radiolocalization. The LS and GP counts were well correlated, and there was concordance between SLN and neck node status in 7 of 8 cases (87.5%). We thus considered that our concept in this study was valid in determining the necessity for neck dissection for those node-negative oral SCC patients.