“Lymph node staging in early-stage ovarian cancer”

Keywords: ovarian cancer, sentinel node, treatment

If ovarian cancer is detected at a very early stage (in the ovary, with no metastases), surgery to remove the ovary and the fallopian tubes is enough. But metastases can be microscopically small, which is why removing the affected ovary is not enough; the lymph nodes are also removed and small biopsies are taken of healthy-looking structures in the abdomen. Removing these lymph nodes (preferably twenty or more) often results in unpleasant side effects, such as fluid retention in the legs.

When additional research proves that a new technique for detecting the sentinel node(s) is just as reliable for ovarian cancer as it is for breast cancer, identifying lymph node metastases will also become more reliable and produce fewer side effects.