Abstract
Purpose To evaluate the hybrid approach in a large population of patients with melanoma in the head and neck, on the trunk, or on an extremity who were scheduled for sentinel node (SN) biopsy. Materials and Methods This prospective study was approved by the institutional review board. Between March 2010 and March 2013, 104 patients with a melanoma, including 48 women (average age, 54.3 years; range, 18.5-87.4 years) and 56 men (average age, 55.2 years; range, 22.4-77.4 years) (P = .76) were enrolled after obtaining written informed consent. Following intradermal hybrid tracer administration, lymphoscintigraphy and single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography were performed. Blue dye was intradermally injected prior to the start of the surgical operation (excluding patients with a facial melanoma). Intraoperatively, SNs were initially pursued by using gamma tracing followed by fluorescence imaging (FI) and, when applicable, blue-dye detection. A portable gamma camera was used to confirm SN removal. Collected data included number and location of the preoperatively and intraoperatively identified SNs and the intraoperative number of SNs that were radioactive, fluorescent, and blue. A two-sample test for equality of proportions was performed to evaluate differences in intraoperative SN visualization through FI and blue-dye detection. Results Preoperative imaging revealed 2.4 SNs (range, 1-6) per patient. Intraoperatively, 93.8% (286 of 305) of the SNs were radioactive, 96.7% (295 of 305) of the SNs were fluorescent, while only 61.7% (116 of 188) of the SNs stained blue (P < .0001). FI was of value for identification of near-injection-site SNs (two patients), SNs located in complex anatomic areas (head and neck [28 patients]), and SNs that failed to accumulate blue dye (19 patients). Conclusion The hybrid tracer enables both preoperative SN mapping and intraoperative SN identification in melanoma patients. In the setup of this study, optical identification of the SNs through the fluorescent signature of the hybrid tracer was superior compared with blue dye-based SN visualization.