Photo by a. drian via Flickr
The FDA has recently approved of Lymphoseek – an imaging medication that helps doctors determine exactly where the lymph nodes in breast cancer patients are. Doctors inject the drug into the tumor area and using a handheld radiation detector, find lymph nodes that have taken up Lymphoseek’s radioactivity.
Lymphatic fluid flows from the body’s tissues and is filtered by the lymph nodes. If the fluid is draining from a part of the body that contains a tumor, it may contain cancercells.
Doctors can sometimes determine whether a cancer has metastasized (spread) by surgically removing the lymph nodes that drain a tumor and examining them.
Lymphatic mapping involves identifying which lymph nodes might contain tumor metastases, taking them out to be examined in order to determine whether the cancer has spread beyond the primary tumor. Then the doctor can accurately stage the cancer.
via http://www.medicalnewstoday.com by (Christian Nordqvist) // Read More >>
Lymphoseek is the first medication used for locating lymph nodes to be approved in the United States in over thirty years. Lymphatic mapping helps the doctor to accurately stage the cancer which is crucial because only then can the oncologist make the best therapy recommendations and determine patient prognosis and risk of recurrence.
