Or you may go home and return the following day for your surgery. Afterwards you might go straight to the ward to prepare for surgery. The scan can take around 90 minutes, but this time may vary. The radiographer might mark where these nodes are on your skin.

The first nodes that the tracer drains into are the sentinel nodes. This picks up the radioactive liquid and traces it as it moves through the lymphatic vessels and into the lymph nodes. The radioactive liquid is called a tracer. You have an injection of a small amount of mildly radioactive liquid into the area close to the cancer. This scan shows the surgeon which lymph nodes to remove but doesn’t tell them whether the nodes contain cancer. You usually have this in the nuclear medicine department in the hospital. The day before or morning of your operation you have a scan to show where the sentinel nodes are. How you have a sentinel lymph node biopsy Before your sentinel lymph node biopsy You might have a sentinel node biopsy at the same time as your operation to remove the cancer. This is usually for people with early stage mouth cancer. The doctor then checks to see if this lymph nodes contains cancer cells. Find out about stages of mouth and oropharyngeal cancerĬhecking your lymph nodes (sentinel lymph node biopsy)Ī sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a test to find the first lymph node or nodes that the cancer may spread to.They send the nodes to the laboratory to check them for cancer cells.įor an early stage cancer your doctor might suggest a sentinel lymph node biopsy. In this case, your surgeon might remove the lymph nodes closest to the cancer. Sometimes your surgeon doesn't know if there are cancer cells in your lymph nodes before you have surgery. In this case, the surgeon removes your lymph nodes during your surgery to remove the cancer. It is important to know this to work out the stage of the cancer and plan treatment.īefore your operation, your surgeon might know that there is cancer in your lymph nodes. Your doctor needs to find out if lymph nodes in the neck contain cancer. They are often the first place cancer cells spread to when they break away from a primary cancer. They also trap damaged or harmful cells such as cancer cells. They are part of the lymphatic system that filters body fluid and fights infection. Lymph nodes are small bean shaped glands found throughout the body, including the head and neck area. Why do you need surgery to remove the lymph nodes? The doctor then checks to see if this lymph node contains cancer cells. You might have a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), This is a test to find the first lymph node or nodes that a cancer may spread to.

Surgery to remove the lymph nodes in the neck is called a neck dissection. Surgeons don't routinely do a neck dissection on everyone because it can have long term side effects. Surgery to remove the lymph nodes in your neckĬancers of the mouth and oropharynx can spread to lymph nodes in your neck. Your surgeon might remove some or all of the lymph nodes in your neck.

Lymph node in back of neck