[The intraoperative study of the sentinel lymph node was made possible through molecular analysis: a new concept and...

Sentinel lymph node (SLN) is a concept but also a technical possibility that can be studied and applied to almost all organs with cancer. For colorectal cancer surgery, some possibilities of using the SLN are possible, other implausible and some completely new especially aware of possible analysis of SLN by a molecular biology technique. The orientation of dissection or "lymph road mapping" can be designed for this case or the surgeon may want to limit his actions, particularly in patients with a history of colonic surgical resection, to keep the digestive function in maintaining vascular axes considered not involved in the metastatic process. The use of the single analysis of SLN to determine the positive or negative status of the cleaning has failed because of the frequency of false negatives in part to the size of colic advanced cancers at diagnosis. The use of "ultra-stading" by multiple section or exhaustion of the block, can lead to reconsider a stage N0 to N1 as a point, if the analysis technique remains in HES. Unlike the "ultra-stading" by RT- PCR or immunohistochemistry was even more discussed and seems not equivalent in terms of prognosis and therefore no giving formally justification for adjuvant therapy. Currently, a new technique for molecular biology, named "OSNA", allows an analysis of all the SLN in less than 45 minutes. It is therefore possible to obtain during surgery analysis of a node with the same level of information than traditional analysis using HES. If this node is positive and if the strategy in case of positive lymph nodes was determined prior for this patient, it is possible to anticipate this strategy and place after colectomy during the same anesthesia, venous access quickly to start postoperative chemotherapy. This new technique for analyzing lymph applied to the SLN opens a new potential application of this concept in digestive oncology.