Abstract
Although most skin cancer on the distal lower extremity drains exclusively into the inguinal lymph nodes, a small number of cases to interval nodes in the popliteal basin. We investigated our skin cancer database of patients who had skin cancer and performed sentinel node biopsy (SNB) on the distal lower extremity between January 2007 and April 2010 at the Department of Dermatology, University of Miyazaki. Of 21 patients who underwent SNB, 17 cases had malignant melanoma and four had squamous cell carcinoma. Six cases (29%) had drainage to the popliteal basin and one (5%) had tumor-positive popliteal SLN. Four cases were on the heel, one was on the Achilles tendon, and one was on the lateral site of the foot. In conclusion, drainage to popliteal sentinel nodes and the pattern of this drainage should be noted in the distal lower extremity skin cancers.[Skin Cancer (Japan) 2011 ; 26 : 323-326]
