BERLIN, GERMANY (UroToday) - Dr. Arnulf Stenzl, Professor at the Department of Urology Eberhard-Karls-University, Tuebingen, Germany presented his institutional experience with sentinel node biopsy in patients with prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy. As has been previously shown by others, he and his colleagues found variable primary drainage of the prostate.

Their study included 215 patients, mean age 63.6, median Gleason score 7 and mean PSA 10.4, range 0.1 - 49 ng/ml. Lymph node metastases were found in 19, or 8.6% of patients. This group of patients with lymph node metastases had a median Gleason score of 7 and a mean PSA of 25.1 ng/ml. In 18% of patients, the sentinel lymph node was along the external iliac vessels, in 68% it was in the obturator fossa, in 5% it was along the internal iliac vessels and in 9%, it occurred along the common iliacs.

Dr. Stenzl concluded that 1/3 of sentinel LN metastases outside the limited common limits of dissection (obturator fossa) and metastatic landing sites can be predicted by sentinel lymph node guided lymphadenectomy, which in his hands was performed laparoscopically.

Presented by Arnulf Stenzl, MD, at the Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association - New York Section - September 6 - 13, 2008 - Berlin, Germany

Reported by UroToday Contributing Editor Mitchell C. Benson, MD

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