Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0027627 (metastases)
103,950 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Recent data indicates that the sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a possible alternative to axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in early breast cancer patients, with minimal risk of complications. From the medical oncologist's point of view, the impact of SLNB on the management of patients should consider if SLNB is useful to choose adjuvant treatment, if it is adequate to provide local control, and what is the significance of lymph node micrometastases on treatment and staging. Lymph node involvement has always been recognised as the most important prognostic factor in early-stage breast cancer, even if many other parameters have been evaluated in recent years. However, the lack of knowledge of nodal status in patients with false-negative SLNB seems to result in an undertreatment in a very low percentage of patients. Adjuvant chemotherapy and hormonal therapy with tamoxifen are associated with an absolute reduction of the risk of recurrence and death both in node-positive and in node-negative patients, then if patients are treated with modern adjuvant systemic therapy, any effect associated with false negative SLN should be minimised. The impact of axillary treatment on survival is still controversial, but in recent times axillary lymph node positivity is considered as an indicator for high risk of systemic diffusion of the disease rather than a possible origin of systemic metastases. The significance of occult sentinel lymph node metastases detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) or molecular biology on prognosis is still uncertain. The new version of the staging system of breast cancer has recognised the need for a standard diagnostic approach and of a nomenclature system which also takes SLNB into account.
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PMID:Sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer patients: the medical oncology perspective. 1499 84

Sentinel lymph node dissection (SLND) has become the standard of care for the staging of clinically-node negative melanomas and breast cancers. A large literature documents the efficacy of SLND in the staging of melanoma and breast cancer. The SLND has lower associated patient morbidity in comparison to elective node dissections that remove the closest regional-draining node group. SLND has improved accuracy over traditional regional node dissection for the staging of melanoma. Currently, several multicenter trials are evaluating the prognostic significance of melanoma micrometastases in SLN detected by immunohistochemical and molecular methods. Pending trial outcome analysis, SLND has no proven effect on mortality. However, given the current oncologic emphasis on detection and removal of nodal tumor metastases, the technique has an important role in minimizing the invasiveness of tumor staging for melanoma and breast cancer. As long as lymph node metastases are used for staging solid malignancies, surgical pathologists are likely to encounter SLN excisional biopsies as a part of their routine practice.
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PMID:Pathologic analysis of sentinel lymph nodes in melanoma patients: current and future trends. 1499 87

The sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) procedure is an alternative method for assessing the axillary lymph node (ALN) status in patients with breast cancer. The SLNB carries the risk of a false-negative result, with patients harboring positive ALNs in the face of a negative SLNB examination. In addition, the significance of a SLNB with cells identified only with keratin or with deposits less than 0.2 mm remains unresolved. We analyzed our SLNB data over the past 5 years in order to determine the relationship between SLN tumor burden and ALN tumor burden. Pathology files for the past 5 years at Magee-Womens Hospital were searched for all SLNB cases that had an axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). Each SLNB case was reviewed and tabulated for breast tumor size, SLN tumor size, and largest tumor size in the ALND. Correlation and frequency distribution were performed for the status of all SLNs and ALNDs. Patterns of lymph node metastasis were recorded and the sizes of the SLN metastases were reported according to the recent Philadelphia Consensus Conference on Sentinel Lymph Nodes and the revised American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging. SLN metastases were classified as immunohistochemistry (IHC) positive if only single keratin-positive cells or clusters were present and were not observed with standard tissue stains, as submicrometastatic (SMM) if tumors were less than 0.2 mm (excluding IHC positive), as micrometastatic if tumors were larger than 0.2 mm but </=2 mm, or as macrometastatic if tumors were larger than 2 mm. A total of 445 patients had both SLNB and ALND. Fifty percent (224/445) of cases were SLN positive, including 58 SLN positive/ALN positive cases and 166 SLN positive/ALN negative cases. Of the 221 patients in the SLN-negative group, 4 were ALN positive (false-negative SLN). The incidence of SLN metastases increased with tumor stage, with the percentage of SLN positives as follows: T1a, 2.1%; T1b, 10.9%; T1c, 51.7%; and T2, 35.3%. There were 4 of 41 patients (10%) with SLNs that were IHC positive that had macrometastases in a solitary ALN. Three of 22 patients (13.6%) that were SMM positive had ALN macrometastasis in a solitary ALN. Four of 49 patients (8.1%) with micrometastatic SLNs had a solitary positive ALN, 3 of which were macrometastases (6.1%). Overall a total of 10 of 112 patients (9.0%) with traditionally defined SLN micrometastases of 2.0 mm or less had a solitary ALN macrometastasis. The vast majority (90%) of these macrometastases were found with T1c and T2 breast tumors. There was a significant difference in the means of SLN tumor sizes for the SLN-positive/ALND-negative (4.5 mm) versus SLN-positive/ALND-positive (10.1 mm) patients, although the range of SLN tumor sizes within each group were similar. There is an increasing incidence of SLN-positive and ALN-positive cases with increasing T stage. Overall in this series, 9% of patients with SLN metastases </=2 mm had a solitary axillary macrometastasis. Ninety percent of these metastases occurred with T1c/T2 breast tumors, indicating the important codependence of T stage. Overall there is a subset of patients who are IHC positive, SMM positive, or micrometastatic positive with ALNs that are macrometastatic who are at risk of harboring axillary macrometastases. Keratin IHC of breast SLNs is useful for defining these subsets.
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PMID:Sentinel lymph node micrometastasis as a predictor of axillary tumor burden. 1500 35

Routine determination of the nodal status in colon cancer is strongly dependent on the individual quality and technique of histopathological assessment and surgical lymph node dissection. We evaluated whether sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) could contribute to an improvement in staging. At least one SLN (median n=2) was detected (detection rate 84%) in each of 38 of 45 patients with primary colon cancer. Ten of these 38 were found to have lymph node metastases by HE staining (26%), six of them in the SLN. Nine of the 28 patients that were initially nodal-negative by HE revealed one micrometastasis and eight cases of isolated tumor cells by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining (32% upstaging response). Including the IHC-positive cases, 19 of the 38 patients were nodal-positive (50%), 15 of them with tumor-infiltrated SLN (overall sensitivity of SLNB 79%). Using the dye method, SLNB is clinically practicable and leads in the majority of the patients to the detection of SLN. The selective, intensified histopathological assessment of SLN identifies small tumor cell deposits in a relevant percentage of patients with little and clinically practicable effort.
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PMID:[Optimization of staging in colon cancer using sentinel lymph node biopsy]. 1511 45

The diagnostic usefulness of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has been well established, but its therapeutic value remains unproven. First introduced by Morton and colleagues, the SLNB procedure is now widely available, and markedly enhances our ability to pathologically stage the regional nodes. Although the SLN status is acknowledged as the most powerful indicator of prognosis in melanoma, there is no evidence to-date, of survival advantage for complete lymphadenectomy in SLN-positive patients. Also, there is no effective adjuvant therapy that could benefit these sentinel node-positive patients, as yet. Additionally, new data have emerged indicating a possible increase in local/in-transit recurrence following complete lymphadenectomy in sentinel node-positive patients. To understand fully and to evaluate these observations we need information from randomized controlled trials. Major changes have occurred following the latest revision of melanoma staging system (AJCC, 6th edition). Concerning N category, these include the incorporation of the number of metastatic lymph nodes, the tumour burden of nodal metastases, and the ulceration of the primary tumour. The data obtained from the new staging system will reflect differences in prognosis that were not previously emphasized and which, we hope, will serve as a guide to more accurate analysis of metastatic pathways in cutaneous melanoma as well as a rationale for new forms of treatment.
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PMID:Clinical and biological aspects of sentinel node biopsy in malignant melanoma--an update. 1596 Sep 21

In colorectal cancer the sentinel node dissection may help to identify any unusual mesenteric lymphatic drainage pattern from the primary tumor site (ex/skip metastases); assuming that accurate pathological staging is critical for therapeutic decisions we are conducing a study to evaluate the feasibility of the sentinel node technique in colorectal neoplasms and its overall accuracy in predicting regional lymph nodes metastases for appropriate staging. From February 2001 to September 2004 we included in this study 30 patients with rectal lesions or degenerate colonic polyps not radically excised by endoscopy. Lymphatic mapping was performed with low molecular weight albumin colloid labelled with 500Mci of 99mTc in a 2 ml volume and injected submucosally by an endoscopic route at the four cardinal points around the tumor, the afternoon before the surgical procedure, both in case of colonic or rectal lesions. Scintigraphic images were obtained with a gamma camera fitted with a general purpose collimator. The day of the intervention, a hand held gamma detecting probe (Scintiprobe m100, Pol-Hi-Tech, Italy) was employed to detect the "hot" nodes, in vivo and ex vivo. These lymph nodes were tagged with a stitch in vivo; the specimen was removed by a standard resection and SLN were dissected ex vivo and sent separately for pathological examination. In case of rectal lesions, the sentinel nodes were searched ex vivo into mesorectal fat in case. All lymph nodes, including blue or hot ones, were embedded separately for preparation of paraffin sections and haematoxylin and eosin staining. Sentinel lymph node were submitted to multi-seriate sections in order to look for micrometastases. Using the radioactive tracer, sentinel lymph nodes were successfully identified in 27 out of 30 patients. Concordance between SLNs and nodal status was observed in 23 out of 27 cases (85%); two patients (7.4%) were upstaged, as SLN was the only site of metastases. In another two cases we observed no concordance between negative sentinel node and non sentinel nodes (false negative rate, 7.4%). Starting from this experience we are proposing a multicentric trial concerning the value of sentinel node technique in rectal cancer and in early colorectal cancers detected by screening programs.
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PMID:[Lymphoscintigraphic localization of sentinel lymph nodes in colorectal carcinoma in early stage: results of a single center study and proposal of a multicenter protocol]. 1643 82

The presence of lymph node metastasis is the best predictor of disease progression and overall survival in patients who have melanoma. Lymphatic mapping and selective lymphadenectomy allows directed pathologic analysis of the node or nodes most likely to have metastatic disease. To diagnose metastatic disease in SLNs reliably requires a coordinated effort by nuclear medicine physicians, surgeons, and pathologists. Errors may occur if quality assurance is not emphasized at any point during the process. This, along with the presence of occult metastatic disease, may lead to disease recurrence and progression, even when SLN histologically are free of disease. Molecular up-staging of occult malignant disease has the potential to provide important information to facilitate the diagnosis, surveillance, and treatment of cancer. The detection of occult tumor cells in SLNs and blood provides a powerful tool for assessing early regional and systemic disease spread in patients who have AJCC stage II and III-not only melanoma but also other solid tumors. The use of varying panels of markers from different laboratories has hampered the interpretation of data and made it difficult to unravel the merits of molecular up staging. Molecular approaches have made a major impact on the field of infectious disease and should one day be of equal usefulness in the diagnosis of cancer.
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PMID:Molecular upstaging of sentinel lymph nodes in melanoma: where are we now? 1663 18

Bone marrow (BM) biopsy has been suggested as an independent prognostic tool to improve staging in patients with breast cancer. Two hundred and ten consecutive patients operated for breast cancer from June 2000 to June 2005 who signed an informed consent were enrolled in this protocol. Patients underwent SLN biopsy, and lymph nodes were analysed with serial sections and stained with hematossilin-eosin and immunohistochemistry. At the end of the procedure a BM aspirate from the iliac crest was obtained and 5-10 cc of blood collected. A CEA specific nested reverse transcriptase (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was used to examine BM samples. Results were blinded to both patients and clinicians. The median age of the patients was 56 years (range 34-80), and the median tumor diameter 1,5 cm (range 0.2-4.5). BM aspirates were unsuccessful in ten patients, and RT-PCR was not technically feasible in seventeen women, leaving 183 patients available for analysis of results and follow up. SLN biopsy allowed diagnoses of occult metastases (micrometastases and isolated tumor cells) in 16% of patients (29/183). 25% of T1N0 patients (23/92), 35% of T2N0 patients (6/17), and 44% of N1-2 patients (32/72) were BM+ (p = 0.03). At a median follow up of 35 months 5/122 in the BM- group and 6/61 in the BM+ group have relapsed (p = 0.2), while 1/122 and 4/61 have died of disease (p = 0.04) In conclusion, ultrastaging of breast cancer patients may identify a substantial subgroup of patients N-/BM- who may not require adjuvant chemotherapy, as well as a subgroup N-/BM+ with a decreased survival who may need more aggressive therapies. Further follow-up is needed to confirm this hypothesis, and several studies are under way.
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PMID:Bone marrow and sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with breast cancer: from staging to ultrastaging? 1731 Aug 38

Sentinel lymphadenectomy (SLNE) is now internationally accepted for the primary treatment of melanomas thicker than 1 mm. But it is still controversial whether also patients with nonulcerated melanomas in the Breslow range between 0.76 and 1 mm should be included. At the authors' department, 87 of such patients (Group A) underwent SLNE in combination with wide local excision (WLE) of their primary melanomas in the years 1995 to 2001. SLN micrometastases were found in 10 of these patients (11.5%). Radical completion lymph node dissections (CLND) were added in 4 of the 10 patients without revealing any further nodal metastases. All the 87 Group A patients remained free from recurrent disease at a median follow-up time of 74 months. The control Group B from the same department encompassed 61 consecutive stage Ia patients with melanomas in the identical Breslow range, who had undergone only WLE of their primaries without SLNE in the years 1987 to 1993 (median follow-up time 115 months). Five of these 61 patients (8.2%) developed melanoma metastases within 12 to 68 (median 19) months of follow-up, 3 of them initially in regional lymph nodes. Four of the 5 individuals died because of the final distant dissemination of the melanoma. Kaplan-Meier comparisons between Groups A and B with log-rank testing showed a significantly worse outcome of Group B with respect to recurrence-free survival (p = 0.01), regional nodal progression (p = 0.041), distant metastasis (p = 0.023) and melanoma-related mortality (p = 0.03). The overall survival was not significantly different, because expiries not related to melanoma predominated in both groups. Our data suggest that SLNE seems to nearly completely eliminate the risk of melanoma recurrences in patients with melanomas between 0.76 and 1 mm thick.
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PMID:Benefit of sentinel lymphadenectomy for patients with nonulcerated cutaneous melanomas in the Breslow range between 0.76 and 1 mm: a follow-up study of 148 patients. 1739 29

Proper assessment of lymph node status is of crucial importance in the management of newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Early stage metastatic disease takes the form of microscopic tumor-cell deposits rather than grossly enlarged nodes. So far there is no imaging technique, however, which allows detecting small metastases in the range of a few millimetres. Therefore pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) is the only reliable method of staging for clinically localized prostate cancer. The cornerstone of radioguided prostate surgery is a radiopharmaceutical--a carrier molecule labeled by radionuclide. After injection to at the prostate, the radiopharmaceutical crosses the lymphatic pores and migrates into the lymph vessels and from there to the first echelon of lymph nodes. We were the first to show that sentinel PLND can be performed by means of laparoscopy preceding laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. Our most recent publication presents data of 140 patients with clinically localized prostate cancer in which laparoscopic sentinel PLND was performed preceding radical prostatectomy from November 2001 to January 2005. On the preoperative scintigraphy SLNs were detected bilaterally,unilaterally, not on the pelvic-walls in 113 (80.7%), 20 (14.2%) and 6 (4.2%) patients and intraoperatively in 96 (68.6%), 36 (25.7%), 8 (5.7%) patients respectively. In 99 out of 140 patients (70.7%) intraoperatively SLN was detected in the same position as on preoperative scan. At least one SLN was detected in 133 patients (95.3%). Whenever PLND is indicated it should not be limited to lymph node sampling as provided by standard limited PLND but has to be performed in the template of extended PLND. There is only limited experience with sentinel PLND, but all the data collected so far indicate that this method has the potential to become an alternative to extended PLND since it allows for reduction of the extent of PLND without compromising diagnostic accuracy.
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PMID:[Sentinel lymph node dissection for localized prostate cancer]. 1789 66


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