Sentinel lymph node mapping in patients with stage I endometrial carcinoma: a focus on bilateral mapping identification by comparing radiotracer Tc99(m) with blue dye versus indocyanine green fluorescent dye.

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to compare technetium radiocolloid (Tc99(m)) + blue dye (BD) versus Indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescent dye in terms of the overall detection rate and bilateral sentinel lymph node (SLN) mapping in patients with endometrial carcinoma.

METHODS

Patients from five European centers with apparently confined clinical stage I endometrial cancer were reviewed. A comparison was made between women who received SLN mapping with pelvic and/or aortic lymphadenectomy (LND), and women who underwent SLN algorithm (SA), was also performed between the two groups.

RESULTS

Three hundred and forty-two (342) women were involved (147 in the Tc99(m) + BD group and 195 in the ICG group). The overall detection rate of SLN biopsy was 97.3% (143/147) for women in the Tc99(m) + BD group and 96.9% (189/195) for women in the ICG group (p = 0.547). The bilateral mapping rate for ICG was 84.1%-significantly higher with respect to the 73.5% obtained with Tc99(m) + BD (p = 0.007). No differences in overall sensitivity (OS) and overall false negative rate (FNR) were seen between LND and SA (p value = 0.311), whereas the negative predictive value (NPV) was in favor of SA group (p value = 0.030).

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, fluorescent mapping using ICG resulted equivalent to the standard combined radiocolloid and BD, but real-time SLN mapping achieves a higher bilateral detection rate. The added value that this fast emerging technology promises to give certainly warrants future studies to further consolidate the advantages there are over the standard technique.