The sentinel lymph node concept. 2005. A.J. Schauer, W. Becker, M. Reiser, K. Possinger (Eds). Springer Verlag, Heidelberg Berlin New York. Hardcover, 565 pp., 420 figs., 228 tables. ISBN 3-540-41041-4. Price €199.95, SFR 338.50, GBP 154.00, US $ 249.00

Excerpt

This book focusses on the sentinel node (SN) concept. The editors are distinguished nuclear medicine physicians and experts in the field, and the contributors are authors of many published scientific papers on the SN procedure. The text is organised into thirty-three chapters, grouped into two different parts: a general part and a specific part. The general part describes the most relevant information about the lymphatic drainage from different tumours, the current status of the diagnostic imaging used in SN labelling, and the preoperative and intraoperative modalities available for cancer characterisation by cytology and histology. The relevant issues in the area of physics (radiation-detecting systems and gamma probes), radiochemistry, surgical investigations and statistics related to this subject are discussed, giving a general survey of the critical aspects that can affect the detection of SNs. The most important procedures for N staging based on radiological and nuclear medicine imaging are reported, and a comparison is carried out to evaluate their clinical effectiveness. Since the SN concept has now been extended to many tumour types, the specific part of the book considers the most extensive experiences in respect of the different tumours: breast cancer, head and neck tumours, lung cancer, malignant melanoma, gastrointestinal cancer, neuroendocrine tumours, cancer of the urinary tract, cancer of the reproductive system and prostatic cancer. The diagnostic potential of FDG-PET in the various tumour types is also examined and discussed as an additional tool for tumour staging and an alternative/complementary option for the SN procedure. …