The status of the homolateral axillary lymph nodes is still the most important prognostic factor in early stage breast cancer. The information obtained from the pathological examination of the lymph nodes guides is of critical importance in the decision process regarding the use of postoperative adjuvant therapy. However, lymph node axillary dissection can be followed by significant locoregional morbidity. The sentinel lymph node (SLN) technique was developed as a means of avoiding the full exploration of the axilla and consists in the identification of the first lymph node in the lymphatic drainage system of the breast tumour in the homolateral axilla. It has been demonstrated that the status of the SLN is highly predictive for the presence or absence of tumour involvement in the remaining lymph nodes in the axilla. In this study we evaluated the SLN technique using both 99mTc labelled dextran 500 and patent blue V dye in relation to the classical lymph node resection a series of 56 women with early breast cancer who attended the Breast Unit of the Academic Hospital of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. To our knowledge this is the first report in the literature of the utilization of 99mTc dextran 500 for the SLN technique. As there are no similar commercially available dedicated radiopharmaceuticals labelled for use in lymphoscintigraphy studies, we report on an effective method to label dextran 500 with 99mTc which proved to be simple, inexpensive and yielded similar results for SLN identification compared with those given in the literature. The median age of the patients was 57 years (range 32-82 years). Seventeen patients were age 50 years or less, and 39 patients were older than 50 years. The median tumour size was 2.0 cm (range 0.8-7.0 cm). The mapping of the SLN was possible in all cases during the transoperative period by using a hand-guided gamma probe and a blue dye. A median of 2.0 (range 1-5) SLN were excised per patient. The median of axillary lymph nodes excised per patient was 21 (range 10-36). The calculated sensitivity and specificity of the method were 95.6% and 100%, respectively. The negative predictive value and overall accuracy were 97% and 98.2%, respectively. In conclusion, the SLN technique was feasible and produced similar positive results as previously reported in the literature.