[Minimally invasive surgery based on sentinel node biopsy for gastrointestinal cancer]

Sentinel lymph node biopsy has been found to be highly effective in correctly predicting the nodal status of melanoma and breast cancer patients. Recently, individualized surgical treatments based on the actual metastatic status have been introduced in patients with melanoma and breast cancer. Although several promising results of extensive lymph node dissection have been reported in the field of gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, prognostic benefits of extensive surgery are still not validated by prospective randomized trials. Many feasibility studies favoring sentinel node biopsy in various organs have been reported. Although more evidence from large-scale multicenter clinical trials is required, sentinel lymph node mapping might be also widely acceptable for GI cancer.