The Role of sentinel lymph-node biopsy in managing lip squamous cell carcinoma patients without clinical evidence of nodal metastasis.

AIM Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lip is a common oral malignancy. Lymph node metastasis occurs lately in the natural history of the disease but it is associated with poor outcome. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is an option that determines the potentially affected lymph nodes especially in clinically negative-node patients. The study aims to determine the feasibility of SLNB as a reliable staging tool in N0 stage lip SCC patients. METHODS Eighteen patients with N0 stage lip SCC were enrolled in the study. They were subjected to SLNB using the injection of the radiocolloid material and the Blue dye. The procedure was followed by bilateral supraomohyoid neck dissection in all patients. The pathological results of the harvested sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) were compared with that of the dissection specimen in each patient. RESULTS The patent blue dye could localize the SLN in 15/18 patients whilst the radioisotope scanning could successfully identify it in 17/18 patents. On average, 1.8 SLNs were harvested from each patient. Two of seventeen patients with identified SLNs (11.8%) have positive nodal metastases. One of them has two SLNs and the other has only one. No false negativity was reported in the study as all the excised SLNs reflected correctly the status of the lymph node basin. CONCLUSION Sentinel lymphadenectomy is a safe and feasible procedure in managing neck of patients with node-negative lip SCC. It can accurately stage these patients. KEYWORDS sentinel lymph node, lip, cancer.