Related Experiment Video For contrast-enhanced ultrasound
Updated: Mar 9, 2026
Multi-photon Imaging of Tumor Cell Invasion in an Orthotopic Mouse Model of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Published on: July 25, 2011
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound mapping of sentinel lymph nodes in oral tongue cancer-a pilot study
Shalva R Gvetadze1,2,3, Ping Xiong4, Mingming Lv1
11 Department of Oral Maxillofacial-Head Neck Oncology, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Stomatology, Shanghai, China.
Objectives:
To assess the usefulness of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) with peritumoral injection of microbubble contrast agent for detecting the sentinel lymph nodes for oral tongue carcinoma.
Methods:
The study was carried out on 12 patients with T1-2cN0 oral tongue cancer. A radical resection of the primary disease was planned; a modified radical supraomohyoid neck dissection was reserved for patients with larger lesions (T2, n = 8). The treatment plan and execution were not influenced by sentinel node mapping outcome. The Sonovue™ contrast agent (Bracco Imaging, Milan, Italy) was utilized. After detection, the position and radiologic features of the sentinel nodes were recorded.
Results:
The identification rate of the sentinel nodes was 91.7%; one patient failed to demonstrate any enhanced areas. A total of 15 sentinel nodes were found in the rest of the 11 cases, with a mean of 1.4 nodes for each patient. The sentinel nodes were localized in: Level IA-1 (6.7%) node; Level IB-11 (73.3%) nodes; Level IIA-3 (20.0%) nodes. No contrast-related adverse effects were observed.
Conclusions:
For oral tongue tumours, CEUS is a feasible and potentially widely available approach of sentinel node mapping. Further clinical research is required to establish the position of CEUS detection of the sentinel nodes in oral cavity cancers.
