Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy in Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma Series of 37 Cases and Systematic Review of the Literature

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma is one of the most common skin cancers and can lead to patient death. Early diagnosis of node metastasis is a major goal for dermatologists and oncologists. The sentinel lymph node procedure has been proposed to improve this issue but is still debated. To evaluate the efficacy and the impact of this technique on prognosis of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, 37 patients (Saint Louis Hospital, Paris - France) who underwent sentinel lymph node biopsy and 290 cases from the literature were analyzed. Our work shows that the rate of positive sentinel lymph node biopsy was 0.14 [0.09-0.22] and that relapse-free survival and overall survival were not different regarding to sentinel lymph node status (log-rank test; p = 0.08 and p = 0.31, respectively) suggesting that it is not a mandatory procedure for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma management.