Skip to main content
AAO-HNSF 2023 Annual Meeting & OTO Experience Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Head and Neck Surgery

Sentinel Node Biopsy for Oral Cavity Cancer: Establishing the Workflow

Monday, October 2, 2023
1:45 PM - 2:45 PM East Coast USA Time
Location: Ballroom C2

    Lead Presenter(s)

  • David M. Cognetti, MD

    Professor and Chair, Department of Otolaryngology
    Thomas Jefferson University
    Philadelphia, PA, United States

    • Co-Presenter(s)

  • Stephen Y. Lai, MD, PhD

    Professor
    The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
    Houston, TX, United States

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Sentinel node biopsy (SNB) is established as standard of care for breast cancer and melanoma. In oral cavity carcinoma, elective neck dissection is recommended due to an approximately 30% chance of occult nodal metastases. This means that greater than 2/3rds of patients undergoing elective neck dissection for oral cavity carcinoma have no evidence of nodal involvement on final pathology. SNB addresses this issue. SNB is widely used in Europe for oral cavity carcinoma and has been adopted in select centers in the United States. It is supported by NCCN guidelines and continued advances in experience and technology predict that the use of SNB for oral cavity carcinoma will continue to grow. This topic is particularly timely as an international, multi-institutional randomized prospective clinical trial addressing the role of SNB in oral cavity cancer opened in July 2020 and is actively enrolling (NRG-HN006).

This expert series will focus on the role of SNB in the management of oral cavity carcinoma. This will be evidence-based with review of the major multi-institutional trials on the topic. The benefits and limitations will be reviewed, including perceived roadblocks that have slowed adoption in the United States. The experienced instructors will present the newest technology and techniques as well as tips for incorporation into practice. Special emphasis will be given to understanding the workflow and coordination required among multiple teams, including surgery, nuclear medicine, and pathology. Finally, the new multi-institutional NRG Oncology randomized trial designed to define the role of SNB in oral cavity cancer will be reviewed with discussion of how to be involved.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 1: Describe the rationale and role of sentinel node biopsy in oral cavity carcinoma

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 2: Cite the current evidence and understand the role of future study for sentinel node biopsy in oral cavity carcinoma

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 3: Understand techniques for performing SNB and incorporating it into practice

BACKGROUND STATEMENT: There is increasing interest in SNB in the oral cavity cancer in the US, which lags behind Europe in its use. It is a particularly timely topic as a cooperative group randomized clinical trial addressing SNB in oral cavity opened in 2020 and is actively enrolling.