The predictive value of lymphoscintigraphy for nodal metastases of cutaneous melanoma.

Lymphoscintigraphy is used to identify ambiguous drainage patterns in cutaneous melanoma of the head, neck and trunk. This study evaluated the efficacy and reliability of lymphoscintigraphy to identify the drainage nodes in 51 patients undergoing both elective and therapeutic lymphadenectomy over a seven-year period. All 13 patients who had lymph node metastases during this follow-up period had the metastatic disease in the very lymph node basins identified by lymphoscintigraphy. Most significantly, none of the 51 patients had metastatic disease in lymphatic basins that were not previously identified by lymphoscintigraphy.