How is the sentinel node biopsy done?
This is done under general anesthesia. There are four parts to the operation: • Location and biopsy of the sentinel node. This is done using a hand held Gamma Probe (which is like a Geiger counter) to find the radioactive nodes. • A frozen section of this will be done and the pathologist will let us know if he sees cancer in the sentinel node(s). • The breast tumor will be removed (unless this has already been done during another procedure). • The remainder of the lymph glands in the armpit will be removed. The pathologist will continue to process the lymph nodes after the surgery and will give us a final report in two to three days. It is possible that he will not find cancer in the lymph nodes on frozen section, but will find evidence of cancer on his additional studies. This happens about 10% of the time. Studies have shown that sentinel node biopsy is about 97% accurate in predicting whether the rest of the lymph glands in the axilla (armpit) will have cancer.
