Laparoscopic sentinel node detection with indocyanine green and near-infrareted fluorescence imaging for cervical cancer

Abstract

Objective: Radical hysterectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy is standard therapy for cervical cancer. The standard surgical lymph node assessment is a systematic lymphadenectomy, but the procedure is associated with lymphedema and lymphocysts. A sentinel lymph node (SLN) is the first node draining the lymphatic flow from a primary tumor. If the SLN is negative for metastasis, nodes after the SLN are also considered to be negative. We report our experience using a new laparoscopic fluorescence imaging system with indocyanine green (ICG) for SLN detection with cervical