The colorectal cancer is responsible for 8.000 deaths a year in Brazil. It is believed that there is post operative sub staged. The objective of this study is to research on the sentinel lymph node in patients with colon cancer. The sample was composed by 18 patients, all of them with diagnose of cancer, undertaken to laparotomy with injection of the markers of lymph nodes in the subserosa peritumoral. RESULTS: intraoperative identification sentinel lymph nodes with the markers occurred in 16 (88,8%) patients. The patent blue dye identified sentinel lymph nodes in 13 (72,2%) and the radioisotopic in 16 (88,8%). Lymphoscintigraphy of surgical specimen were obtained from 15 patients. The global sensitivity of this method was of 66,7% and the false-negative of 33,3%. After the histological examination with multilevel section and immunohistochemical in 11 patients, one (9%) case of micrometastase was diagnosed being considered ultrastaging. CONCLUSIONS: It can be said that the procedure is viable; the radioisotope is more effective; the lymphoscintigraphy of the surgical specimen is capable of certifying the presence of absorption of the radioisotope by the lymph node; the incidence of lymph node metastases is, proportionally, the same as the one of the sentinel and non sentinel nodes; the techniques of the multilevel section and immunohistochemical contribute to improve the activity of the lymph node metastases diagnose.
Sentinel lymph node; Cancer; Colon; Metastases
