A look at the navigation surgery of the gastric cancer: the present state of the problem and own experience
Introduction: Concept of sentinel lymph node biopsy has been discussed during several last decades, because this idea seems perspective in terms of modern minimally invasive and organ-preserving era. However, this method has several limitations including complicated anatomy of gastric lymph nodes distribution and presence of skip-metastases. Materials and methods: 66 Patients with early gastric cancer, intermediate risk of lymph node metastases and technical possibility of ESD were included into our investigation. Patients were assigned to either ESD with sentinel lymph node biopsy (54 patients), or underwent distal gastrectomy or total gastrectomy with D1+/D2 lymphadenectomy (12 patients) by chance. Results: 56 (84,6%) Patients had at least one sentinel lymph node. 11 (16,7%) Patients with T1a-T1b had metastases in regional lymph nodes, 9 of them in sentinel lymph nodes (2 false-negative result). So, we calculated sensitivity of 84,6%. In one case, the metastasis was located outside the sentinel lymphatic basin, and in the other case, metastasis was detected in a patient with unlit lymph nodes. Conclusion: Today sentinel lymph node biopsy thechnique is considered as a well investigated and widly used method. The concept itself is promising for organ-preserving gastric cancer surgery.