The impact of drainage pathways on the detection of nodal metastases in prostate cancer: a phase II randomized comparison of intratumoral vs intraprostatic tracer injection for sentinel node detection

  • Esther M K Wit*
  • , Florian van Beurden
  • , Gijs H Kleinjan
  • , Nikolaos Grivas
  • , Clarize M de Korne
  • , Tessa Buckle
  • , Maarten L Donswijk
  • , Elise M Bekers
  • , Fijs W B van Leeuwen
  • , Henk G van der Poel
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies indicated that location and amount of detected sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) in prostate cancer (PCa) are influenced where SLN-tracer is deposited within the prostate. To validate whether intratumoral (IT) tracer injection helps to increase identification of tumor-positive lymph nodes (LNs) better than intraprostatic (IP) tracer injection, a prospective randomized phase II trial was performed.

METHODS: PCa patients with a > 5% risk of lymphatic involvement were randomized between ultrasound-guided transrectal injection of indocyanine green-[99mTc]Tc-nanocolloid in 2 depots of 1 mL in the tumor (n = 55, IT-group) or in 4 depots of 0.5 mL in the peripheral zone of the prostate (n = 58, IP-group). Preoperative lymphoscintigraphy and SPECT/CT were used to define the location of the SLNs. SLNs were dissected using combination of radio- and fluorescence-guidance, followed by extended pelvic LN dissection and robot-assisted radical prostatectomy. Outcome measurements were number of tumor-bearing SNs, tumor-bearing LNs, removed nodes, number of patients with nodal metastases, and metastasis-free survival (MFS) of 4-7-year follow-up data.

RESULTS: IT-injection did not result in significant difference of removed SLNs (5.0 vs 6.0, p = 0.317) and histologically positive SLNs (28 vs 22, p = 0.571). However, in IT-group, the SLN-positive nodes were 73.7% of total positive nodes compared to 37.3% in IP-group (p = 0.015). Moreover, significantly more node-positive patients were found in IT-group (42% vs 24%, p = 0.045), which did not result in worse MFS. In two patients (3.6%) from whom the IT-tracer injection only partly covered intraprostatic tumor spread, nodal metastases in ePLND without tumor-positive SNs were yielded.

CONCLUSIONS: The percentage-positive SLNs found after IT-injection were significantly higher compared to IP-injection. Significantly more node-positive patients were found using IT-injection, which did not affect MFS. IT-injection failed to detect nodal metastases from non-index satellite lesions. Therefore, we suggest to combine IT- and IP-tracer injections in men with visible tumor on imaging.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1743-1753
Number of pages11
JournalEuropean Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
Volume49
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Drainage
  • Humans
  • Lymph Nodes/diagnostic imaging
  • Male
  • Prospective Studies
  • Prostatic Neoplasms/pathology
  • Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy/methods
  • Sentinel Lymph Node/pathology

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