Abstract
Ultrasonography has been shown to be valuable in the detection of subcutaneous tumors, especially, and recently used in many institusions. The ultrasonographic appearances of nodal metastases in malignant tumors have particulary been studied to evaluate for mammary carcinoma. In our facility, we performed sentinel node biopsy for the patients with cutaneous malignant tumors, such as malignant melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and extramammary Paget’s disease. Sentinel nodes have been identified to undergo with a combination method using a preoperative lymphoscientigraphy and blue dye methods. These nodes were assessed for ultrasound diagnosis, and these findings of sonography were compared with histopathological findings for 14 patients from February, 2007. In consequece, we have been shown that the groups divided by two groups, with or without metastatic lymph nodes differ significantly in the view of points such as ratio in the length of longitudinal/transverse, shape, and blood flow at the peripheral area of the lymph nodes contributed by Doppler sonography. Based on the information presented above, we consider that an ultrasound examination is useful as a means of preoperatively predicting the presence of sentinel lymph node metastasis.
