Detailed Preoperative Lymphatic Mapping by Lymphoscintigraphy for Sentinel Node Identification: a Pictorial Essay

Pre-operative lymphatic mapping for sentinel node identification is essential for accurate staging in patients with several solid cancers and for important prognostic implications. 99m Tc-labelled colloid lymphoscintigraphy and intraoperative sentinel lymph node detection using a gamma probe represent a well-established nuclear medicine technique and a detailed imaging method thanks to the advent of hybrid multi-modality SPET/CT. Through the description of numerous clinical cases, different in terms of cancer type and fields of application, we aimed to bring out the strengths and advantages of pre-operative lymphoscintigraphy that make it still today incomparable to other techniques.