• The Journal of the Korean bone and joint tumor society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.69-73
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• 2010

Purpose: Sentinel lymph node (SLNB) is the first confronted lymph node from primary lesion of tumor through lymphatic drainage, which is important for determining early metastasis and setting guidelines for treatment. We reported significant of sentinel lymph node biopsy in malignant melanoma (MM) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of lower extremities. Materials and Methods: Twenty-five cases of surgically treatment and being possible for follow up more than 1 year among the patients who were diagnosed as MM and SCC in this institution from Sep. 2005 to Jan. 2009, and 10 cases of them were performed SLNB. Average age was 64 years old, and 15 cases of male and 10 cases of female were in this group. Results: 3 years overall survival rate was 100% and 3 years disease-free survival rate was 76%. Metastasis occurred in total 6 patients, 4 cases of inguinal lymph nodes, 1 case of soft tissue around knee, 1 case of left achilles tendon. In 15 cases of not performing SLNB, overall survival rate was 93.3% and disease-free survival rate was 73.3%. In 10 cases of performing SLNB, overall survival rate was 100% and disease-free survival rate was 90%. And only 1 case showed positive finding in the biopsy, and none of the 10 cases showed metastasis in follow-up. Conclusion: SLNB leads simpler and less complications compared to prior elective lymph node dissection, and shows high degree of accuracy. Throughout the SLNB, setting guidelines for treatment by accurate staging is thought to be helpful for increasing the survival rate in the patient with MM and SCC.