Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymphonodectomy in recurrent cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas

There are subsets of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), including recurrent tumours, that have a high-risk for both local recurrence and metastasis. Since the presence of regional lymph node metastases carries a poor prognosis, the early evaluation of the nodal status is crucial for staging and treatment planning. Recent trials have shown that the lymphatic mapping (LM) and sentinel lymphonodectomy (SLNE) may be successfully employed to screen nodal basins in patients with high-risk cutaneous SCCs at clinical stage N0. We report our experience with this procedure in five selected patients affected with recurrent cutaneous SCCs. A metastatic sentinel lymph node (SLN) was found in 1 of the 5 cases. No false negative result was observed. SLNE is a feasible and minimally invasive staging procedure in patients with high-risk cutaneous SCCs. It may select patients with clinically occult metastases in the regional nodal basins, who can be submitted to therapeutic lymph node dissection (LND), avoiding the morbidity of a prophylactic LND in patients without metastases in SLNs.