What is Targeted lymph node removal (sentinel lymph node biopsy)?
Sentinel lymph node biopsy is a way of finding out which lymph nodes are most likely to contain cancer cells before removing any of them. If none of these lymph nodes have cancer cells, patinet won’t need to have any more removed. If the patient has cancer in the sentinel lymph nodes, breast specialists usually recommend that they have them all taken out (axillary clearance). In sentinel lymph node biopsy, the surgeon injects a small amount of blue dye and a mildly radioactive material into the area of the breast around the tumour. The dye and radioactive tracer drain away from the breast to the lymph glands close to the area. The surgeon can see when it reaches the first group of lymph nodes. These are known as the sentinel nodes. The surgeon removes these 3 or 4 nodes and sends them off to the lab to see if they contain cancer cells. During the surgery, if the surgeon thinks any of the sentinel nodes looks as if they contain cancer cells, they will remove all the nodes around it, alo
