Abstract:

Objective To observe the long-term safety of indocyanine green combined with methylene blue in tracing sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer. Method 40 breast cancer patients with axillary negative clinical findings in Nanhai Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Foshan City from June 2017 to June 2018 were treated with indocyanine green combined with methylene blue for sentinel lymph node biopsy and followed up for 06 months in 2021. The situation of postoperative upper limb lymphedema was counted, and the regional lymph node recurrence, disease-free survival and overall survival rate were analyzed. Result In the telephone follow-up, 40 patients completed the follow-up. Among the 10 patients who underwent ALND operation, 1 patient (10.00%) had postoperative upper limb lymphedema, while among the other 30 patients who underwent SLNB only, 3 patients (10.00%) had postoperative upper limb lymphedema, which improved after symptomatic treatment. There was no significant difference between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05). Of the 40 patients, 3 had regional lymph node recurrence, 2 had contralateral breast cancer, and 4 had distant metastasis. Among the 10 patients receiving ALND, 1 had regional lymph node recurrences (10%), 1 had contralateral breast cancer (10%) and 3 had distant metastasis (10%), while only SLNB patients had regional lymph node recurrence (3). There were 1 cases of contralateral breast cancer (3.33%) and 3 cases of distant metastasis (10%). The difference between the two groups was not significant (P ＞ 0.05). 2 patients died of distant metastasis of breast cancer during the follow-up period, with a mortality rate of 6.67%. DFS was 85.00%, 0s was 95.00%. Conclusion Indocyanine green combined with methylene blue for tracing sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer has long term safety and is worthy of clinical application.

Key words: Indocyanine green, Methylene blue, Combined tracer, Mammary cancer, Sentinel lymph node biopsy, Long term safety