With an estimated 232,670 new cases in the United States in 2014, breast cancer is among the most common malignancies treated by US surgeons. Meanwhile, the incidence of melanoma is rising faster than for all other solid malignancies, with an estimated 76,100 new cases of invasive melanoma in the United States in 2014. Over the past 20 years, significant strides have been made in the management of these two diseases from the standpoint of both surgical and adjuvant therapy. For both diseases, the presence or absence of lymph node metastases is highly predictive of patient outcome and is the most important prognostic factor for disease recurrence and cancer-related mortality. This review covers lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy for melanoma, special circumstances associated with sentinel node biopsy in melanoma, lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy in breast cancer, and radiation exposure guidelines and policies. The figures show lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymph node biopsy for melanoma, lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy for breast cancer, and touch-imprint cytology from lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy for breast cancer.
This review contains 3 highly rendered figures and 89 references.