Comparison of radioactive sulfur colloid and combined methylene blue injection methods for detection of sentinel lymph node in early breast cancer

Abstract

Objective To compare the efficacy of 99Tcm-sulfur colloid and combined 99Tcm-sulfur colloid/methylene blue methods for detection of sentinel lymph node (SLN) in early breast cancer.Methods Seventy-six patients with early breast cancer were dived into two groups.In group 1 (n=25),99Tcm-sulfur colloid detection was used alone.In group 2 (n=51),both 99Tcm-sulfur colloid detection and methylene blue methods were used.The pathological findings of resected axillary lymph nodes were regarded as evaluation standard.Results In 76 patients SLN was successfully detected in 74 cases.The SLN detection rate,accuracy,sensitivity and the false negative rate for 99Tcm-sulfur colloid group and combined group were 92.0％ vs.100％,95.7％ vs.98.0％,90.0％ vs.95.2％,and 10.0％ vs.4.8％ respectively.Conclusions SLN detection in early breast cancer may accurately predict axillary lymph node metastasis,thus providing important information for surgery.Combined use of 99Tcm-sulfur colloid and methylene blue methods may improve the SLN detection accuracy and reduce false negative rate. Key words: Breast neoplasms; Sentinel lymph node biopsy; Sulfur colloid; Methylene blue