Multi-center clinical trial for diagnostic value of sentinel node biopsy to detect lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer - Sentinel biopsy for gastric cancer

433 patients enrolled in the study, and 397 were deemed eligible on the basis of surgical findings. SN biopsy was performed in all the patients, and the SN detection rate was 97.5% (393 of 387). Sensitivity to predict lymph node metastasis was 93% (53 of 57), and accuracy of lymph node status based on SN concept was 99% (383 of 387). Only four negative-false cases were observed, and pathological analysis revealed that three of those biopsies were deeper than pT2 or tumors>4cm, and in one of pT1N0 case, SN metastasis was limited within the region of SN basins. We observed no serious adverse events related to endoscopic tracer injection and SN mapping procedure. (J Clin Oncol. 2013: 31:3704-10)