Should i have a sentinel lymph node biopsy to find out if there is spread to the lymph nodes?

See specialist: This is an important question to discuss with your dermatologist. If the melanoma is 1-4mm thick, sln biopsy is often recommended. Between 0.7-1mm depends on other features of your melanoma. Since we have yet to demonstrate survival benefits, sln biopsy is still used primarily for staging. That said, discussion with your specialist is essential as each case is different.

Yes, for breast CA: Sentinel lymph node biopsy is a critical part of breast cancer surgery, used to stage the cancer, and therefore guide further therapy. A recent study has established that many women do not require further lymph node removal even if there is cancer in the sentinel node.

Likely: With any invasive breast cancer diagnosis, nodal staging is usually indicated most often via sentinel node mapping/biopsy. If there are palpable nodes or abnormal nodes on axillary ultrasound, they can be sampled via fna and if positive, sentinel node biopsy is not necessary. Slnbx is also usually done at the time of mastectomy for dcis in case invasive disease is found at final pathology.

Depends: This would depend on what type of caner you have and the predicted probability of that tumor spreading to a lymph node.