Sentinel-Lymph-Node Biopsy for Breast Cancer — Not Yet the Standard of Care

A sentinel lymph node is the first lymph node to receive lymphatic drainage from a tumor. It can be detected by injection of a blue dye or radioactive colloid around the primary tumor, which travels to and identifies the first draining (sentinel) node. Biopsy of a sentinel lymph node can reveal whether there are lymphatic metastases, thereby obviating the need for extensive dissection of the regional lymph-node basin. Sentinel-lymph-node biopsy has become a standard technique for determining the nodal stage of disease in patients with melanoma. Initial studies of this method in patients with breast cancer suggest that sentinel-lymph-node biopsy . . .