RT Journal
A1 Dupuy A, Heusse J
T1 SPect/ct for sentinel lymph node detection in patients with melanoma
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2013
FD January 16
VO 309
IS 3
SP 232
OP 233
DO 10.1001/jama.2012.88570
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.88570
AB 
To the Editor: Dr Stoffels and colleagues1 evaluated disease-free survival in a series of consecutive patients with melanoma seen in a single center who underwent sentinel lymph node (SLN) excision after preoperative single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) detection. A comparison was made to historical controls from the same center who had SLN detection without preoperative SPECT/CT. The SPECT/CT cohort presented with significantly more SLNs detected per patient and a higher number of positive SLNs per patient. Being in the standard cohort rather than in the SPECT/CT cohort was strongly associated with worse disease-free survival (hazard ratio, 4.11; 95% CI, 1.25-13.51) in a multivariate Cox model including SLN status and other important prognostic factors.