Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Virgen Macarena, Sevilla, Spain.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The goal was to evaluate the sentinel node procedure in relation to different pathways of lymphatic drainage and the areas of pelvic lymphadenectomy in patients with prostate cancer assessed by lymphoscintigraphy and SPECT/CT study.
Eighteen patients with prostate cancer of intermediate prognosis were injected with 240 MBq of (99m)Tc-nanocolloid in the peripheral zone of each quadrant of the prostate, guided by transrectal ultrasonography. Tracer administration was also controlled with a portable gamma camera to assure that there was no diffusion outside the prostate. The injection was followed by planar imaging at 15min. and 2h, performing a SPECT/CT study at 2h. with 2mm slices. On the same day, a laparoscopic sentinel node lymphadenectomy assisted by a gamma probe and a portable gamma camera was performed.
A total of 55 sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) were visualized. In 17/18 of patients (94%) SLNs were observed outside the obturator region. Twenty SLNs (36%) were observed along the external iliac artery, 14 in the obturator fossa (25.4%), 6 in internal iliac area (11%) and 4 in common iliac region (7.2%). Three SLNs were visualized in presacral (5.4%), paraaortic (5.4%), and pararectal areas (5.4%) and two in paravesical region (3.6%). SLN metastases were found in 6 patients (33%), and in one of them, a SLN located along the common iliac artery, was the only one with metastases.
Lymphatic drainage from the prostate has high individual variability, and direct drainage outside the pelvic area is observed frequently. With the SLN procedure, SLNs outside the routine area of lymphadenectomy can also be sampled to stage the patient more accurately.
Article in English, Spanish.
Written by:
de Bonilla-Damiá A, Roberto Brouwer O, Meinhardt W, Valdés-Olmos RA. Are you the author?
Reference: Rev Esp Med Nucl. 2011 Nov 2. Epub ahead of print.
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 22055110
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