My friend has breast cancer. she says she needs a sentinel lymph node biopsy. what is that?

Removing a few nodes: A sentinel node biopsy means removing several lymph nodes in the chain of armpit lymph nodes. Blue dye and/or radioactivity is injected into the breast.The first armpit lymph nodes that "light up" are removed and examined for cancer cells. We know that cancer cells travel through lymph nodes in order. If the sentinel lymph nodes are negative, the others are assumed to be negative as well.

Node staging: With invasive cancer, ax nodes are often the 1st site away from the breast. Staging used to be removing the ax fat pad w/12-15 nodes. As most pts are node neg at dx, removing the 1st node(s) in the chain (sentinel or predictive) gives the same or better staging info wi/less morbidity. These nodes are mapped by dye injection at surgery which travels to the nodes as cancer cells would potentially.

Staging procedure: This is a surgical procedure that is usually performed at the same time as the breast procedure. A radiotracer and/or blue dye is injected into the breast. These travel through the lymphatic system and stop in the first draining lymph node. A small incision is made in the armpit and the surgeon removes the lymph node that has the blue dye and the radiotracer. This node is studied for cancer.

A surgical procedure: This is a surgical procedure to identify the first node that receives drainage from the site of the cancer, and is thus the node most likely to have cancer if cancer has spread. It is done routinely for breast cancer. The node is removed and examined under the microscope for cancer. The results will help determine what additional treatments may be needed.