A Prospective Study of Intraoperative Lymphatic Mapping for Head and Neck Cutaneous Melanoma

Abstract
ALTHOUGH ELECTIVE lymphadenectomy is an effective method of staging the regional lymphatics in patients with cutaneous melanoma, it has not been shown definitively to improve survival.1,2 Consequently, lymphatic mapping with sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy was devised as a way to detect the presence of occult metastases, without performing an extensive nodal dissection. This technique is based on the principle that the SLN, which is the first node to receive lymphatic drainage from the primary tumor, has the highest risk of harboring micrometastatic disease.3-5