Indocyanine green guided sentinel lymph node biopsy may have a high sensitivity for early (T1/T2) colon cancer: A prospective study in Indian patients

Abstract

Objective: Indocyanine green (ICG) dye guided near infrared fluorescence (NIR) imaging is a promising tool for mapping lymphatics. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of ICG guided SLN biopsy in Indian colon cancer patients.

Material and Methods: Forty-eight patients of clinically staged T1-T3 node negative colon cancer underwent laparoscopic/open resection. Patients received colonoscopic peritumoral submucosal ICG injections for laparoscopic (n= 32) and subserosal injections for open resections (n= 16) followed by the detection of SLN using NIR camera. SLNs underwent conventional hematoxylin and eosin (H & E) staging with additional serial sectioning and immunohistochemistry for pancytokeratin antibody (ultra-staging). Detection rate and upstaging rate were the primary end points.

Results: Forty-eight patients were recruited. An average of 2.08 ± 1.27 SLNs were identified in 45 patients at a mean time of 8.2 ± 3.68 minutes with a detection rate of 93.75%. Mean age and mean BMI were 59.7 ± 12.54 years and 24.8 ± 4.09 kg/m² , respectively. Eighteen patients had node positive disease, and SLN was false negative in four of these patients resulting in a sensitivity of 77.77% with a trend towards higher sensitivity for T1-T2 tumours (90% vs. 62.5%, p= 0.068). Upstaging rate was 10%. Negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of the procedure were 87.09% and 91.11%, respectively.

Conclusion: ICG guided SLN biopsy can identify metastatic lymph nodes in colon cancer patients that can be missed on H & E staging with relatively higher sensitivity for early (T1/T2) tumours.

Cite this article as: Ahmed Z, Patil SM, Sekaran A, Rebala P, Rao GV. Indocyanine green guided sentinel lymph node biopsy may have a high sensitivity for early (T1/T2) colon cancer: A prospective study in Indian patients. Turk J Surg 2023; 39 (3): 190-196.

This study was approved by Asian Institute of Gastroenterology Institutional Ethics Committee (Decision no: AIG/IEC-Post BH&R 02/12.2019/ER-01, Date: 10.01.2020).

Externally peer-reviewed.

Concept - ZA, SP, AS; Design - ZA, SP; Supervision - PR, GVR, AS; Data Collection and/or Processing - ZA, SP; Analysis and/or Interpretation - ZA, SP, AS; Literature Review - ZA, PR, GVR; Writer - ZA; Critical Review - All of authors.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.