[Evaluation of green indocyanine interest compared to Technetium in sentinel lymph node detection in breast cancer]

Axillary sentinel lymph node (SN) biopsy by using indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence for breast cancer is a recent technique. However, compared to Technetium-99m (Tc), which is the reference technique, its efficiency has received little testing.

Between December 2013 and January 2014, 40 patients with node-negative breast cancer underwent SN biopsy by injecting sub areolar Tc in preoperative stage and injecting sub areolar ICG in intraoperative stage. SN were previously identified and resected by using ICG coupled with infrared camera. After resection of fluorescent SN, we check its radioactivity with a gamma probe (isotopic method). In case of residual radioactive labeling in the axillary crease, we remove the remaining SN. We have retrospectively analyzed the SN detection concordance rates of these two methods.

In total we resected 53 SN, among which 48 (90.6%) were indocyanine green positive and 53 (100%) Tc positive. The remaining 5 SN were all ICG negative and Tc positive. Using ICG has not caused any side effect.

SN detection for breast cancer by using ICG fluorescence is a promising, reliable technique which nonetheless requires a degree of expertise before reaching similar results as the Tc technique.