A Map for Tracking Cancer
Treatment for breast cancer takes detrimental tolls on the body, but with the technique of sentinel-node mapping, it can be detected whether an extensive cancerous network exists throughout the body. The underarm lymph nodes are commonly the next location to become infected, and if the first node that would be infected can be detected and tested, the extremity of treatment can be more directly correlated with the spread of cancerous cells. If the cancer is localized to the breast, removal of the tumor need not be accompanied by removal of the lymph nodes and ongoing chemotherapy. In past years, detection of breast cancer was accompanied by lymph node removal at a higher rate with higher uncertainty about whether the cancer had travelled. But what about the patients in whom the cancer has yet to spread?
The proportion of patients diagnosed with breast cancer who also have infected underarm lymph nodes is actually fairly low, at only 1 in 3, and unnecessary surgery and treatment for the other 2 can have harmful side effects. If the lymph nodes are removed, crippling swelling of the arm becomes an ominous threat and infection more likely. The accurate detection of cancer in the lymph nodes is a crucial stage in the treatment of breast caner, giving sentinel-node mapping an important role in the medical world.
The technique of sentinel-node mapping involves injection of blue dye and a radioactive tracer into the breast and mapping the path of the dye. The spread of the dye has been proven to mirror the spread of cancer, with the highest concentration of the radioactive tracer remaining in the lymph node to which cancer would have travelled first. This sentinel node is a gateway to other parts of the body, enabling a giant component to form. Should it be infected, cascading effects ensue to create a network of cancer throughout the body, with the sentinel node remaining the hub. For this reason, locating and removing the sentinel node for testing is imperative in order to determine whether further treatment is needed following removal of the breast tumor. If no cancerous cells can be detected in the sentinel node, there would exist no network of cancerous cells throughout the rest of the body.