Comment to: Ballardini B, Santoro L, Sangalli C, et al. the indocyanine green method is equivalent to the 99mTc-labeled radiotracer method for identifying the sentinel node in breast cancer: A concordance and validation study. Eur J Surg Oncol 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejso.2013.10.004

摘要

We read with great interest the recent article of Ballar-dini et al., investigating the role of the Indocyanine Green (ICG) method for identifying the sentinel node in breast cancer.1 In their report, the authors demonstrate the non inferiority of the ICG method when compared with the 99mTc-labeled Radiotracer (TC99) one in detecting the sentinel node in breast cancer, and suggest a novel method that could substitute the actual standard approach with 99mTc-labeled method. Recently, in our surgical department, we have completed an analogous trial arriving to the same results that were observed by Ballardini and co-worker (Table 1), confirming the hypothesis of an absolute comparability of ICG and TC99 in detecting the sentinel node in breast cancer.