Published online Dec 21, 2007. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v13.i47.6291
Revised: October 10, 2007
Accepted: November 15, 2007
Published online: December 21, 2007
Despite near-universal embrace of the concept and clinical relevance of lymphatic mapping for sentinel node identification and analysis for cancers of the breast and integument, the same technique has struggled to a find a role in gastrointestinal cancers in general and, perhaps, in colon cancer in particular. Despite many studies demonstrating its feasibility in malignancies of the large bowel, concern is continually aroused by the variable and often unacceptably low sensitivity rates. Additionally, many confess uncertainty as to what benefit it could ever confer to patients even if it were proven sufficiently accurate given that standard surgical resection incorporates mesenteric resection anyway. However, the huge impact sentinel node mapping has had on clinical practice in certain cancers means that each of these aspects merit careful reconsideration, from very first principles.