| Theme |
Clinical Application of Sentinel Node Concept for Carcinoma of the Alimentary Tract |
| Title |
Laparoscopic Mapping of Sentinel Lymph Node for Early Gastric Cancer |
| Author |
Hideki Hayashi |
Research Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Chiba University |
| Author |
Hiroshi Kawahira |
Department of Frontier Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University |
| Author |
Yorihiko Mutoh |
Department of Frontier Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University |
| Author |
Takenori Ochiai |
Department of Frontier Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University |
| [ Summary ] |
Laparoscopic approaches to detect sentinel lymph nodes (SN) have great potential to provide much less invasive treatments for patients with early gastric cancers. Although favorable results of SN mapping for cancers, employing laparoscopic approaches, have been reported, several issues must be resolved to ensure substantially less invasive treatments without compromising curability levels which are achieved with the standard procedures. The relatively low visibility of dye-stained nodes and techniques to avoid the shine-through phenomenon, associated with the gamma-probe technique in laparoscopy are our major concerns at present. Further accumulation of SN mapping data used in conjunction with imaging technologies may help achieve new therapies for early gastric cancers. |