The Sentinel Lymph Node in Treatment Planning: A Narrative Review of Lymph-Flow-Guided Radiotherapy

Overview

Journal Cancers (Basel)

Publisher MDPI

Specialty Oncology

Date 2023 Jun 22

PMID 37345071

Authors

Loic Ah-Thiane

Caroline Rousseau

Maud Aumont

Axel Cailleteau

Melanie Dore

Augustin Mervoyer

Loig Vaugier

Stephane Supiot

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The sentinel lymph node technique is minimally invasive and used routinely by surgeons, reducing the need for morbid extensive lymph node dissections, which is a significant advantage for cancer staging and treatment decisions. The sentinel lymph node could also help radiation oncologists to identify tumor drainage for each of their patients, leading to a more personalized radiotherapy, instead of a probabilistic irradiation based on delineation atlases. The aim is both to avoid recurrence in unexpected areas and to limit the volume of irradiated healthy tissues. The aim of our study is to evaluate the impact of sentinel lymph node mapping for radiation oncologists. This concept, relying on sentinel lymph node mapping for treatment planning, is known as lymph-flow-guided radiotherapy. We present an up-to-date narrative literature review showing the potential applications of the sentinel lymph node technique for radiotherapy, as well as the limits that need to be addressed before its routine usage.

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