Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare (Jun 2022)

Early Institutional Experience of Dual Tracer and Single-Photon Emission Computed-Tomography/Computed-Tomography Mapping for Sentinel Node Biopsy: A Report of Two Early-Stage Breast Cancer

  • Nashrulhaq Tagiling,
  • Maya Mazuwin Yahya,
  • Wan Zainira Wan Zain,
  • Wan Faiziah Wan Abdul Rahman,
  • Norazlina Mat Nawi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/20101058211057328
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 31

Abstract

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Intraoperative sentinel lymph node mapping (SLNM) with methylene blue dye (MBD) tracer has been the recommended method to detect SLN in early-stage breast cancer patients in low-resource settings. However, the use of MBD alone is hampered by the high false-negative rate; thus, it requires coupling with other mapping methods if the appropriate infrastructure and services are available. In this article, we present two prospective cases detailing our initial experience using the gold-standard dual tracer technique (DTT: MBD and 99m Tc-nanocolloid radioisotope) in combination with hybrid single-photon emission computed-tomography/computed-tomography (SPECT/CT) preoperative mapping for image-guided SLN biopsy (SLNB). Overall, both studies were successful in identifying the SLNs, which aided in mapping the possible anatomical spread of the disease.