Diagnostic value of indocyanine green for sentinel lymph node mapping and lymph node metastasis in oral/oropharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence-based sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy has been promoted to detect early metastasis of oral/oropharyngeal carcinoma, but its diagnostic value still remains unclear. In this letter, we identified 6 studies on ICG fluorescence based SLN in the detection of lymph node metastasis in oral/oropharyngeal carcinoma. For detection of metastatic lymph node, the overall sensitivity and specificity of the studies were 0.86 and 0.91, respectively. SROC curve was determined according to the combined sensitivity and specificity, and the overall area under the curve AUC was 0.93. On the whole, ICG fluorescence-based SLN biopsy showed promising effect for earlier detection and staging.

Keywords: Indocyanine green; Meta-analysis; Oral cancer; Oropharyngeal cancer; Sentinel lymph node mapping; Systematic review.