KOCHI: Doctors at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, have developed a new technique for treatment of uterine cancer.
The new technique known as florescent sentinel node detection helps accurately identify the extent of tumour spread and plan treatment.
The technique was developed by a team of doctors led by Dr R Anupama, associate professor, Department of Gynaecologic Oncology. Sentinel node is the first node to which cancer cells are most likely to spread from a primary tumour. Majority of uterine cancers spread through lymphatics or natural fluid channels in the body.
An accurate identification of the sentinel node helps in mapping the extent of tumour spread and planning effective treatment. An important aspect of the treatment of uterine cancer is surgery - removing the uterus and the lymph nodes to which the disease could have spread.
“Until now, we used to do sentinel mapping with blue dye and colloid, but the technique was tedious. Fluorescent imaging after indocyanine injection makes detection of sentinel much simpler,” said Anupama. “The technique is called fluorescent lymphoscintigraphy to identify the sentinel node in uterine cancer. This is the first time, such a procedure has been done in India, though several hospitals in India have been using robotic surgical platform to treat uterine cancer,” she said.