Background: The diagnostic performance of indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence-guided sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for the presence of metastases in breast cancer remains unclear.
Objective: We performed a meta-analysis to investigate the diagnostic performance of ICG-guided SLNB.
Methods: Eligible studies were identified from searches of the databases PubMed and EMBASE up to September 2015. Studies that reported the detection rate of ICG fluorescence-guided SLNB with full axillary lymph node dissection and histological or immunohistochemical examinations were included. A meta-analysis was performed to generate pooled detection rate, sensitivity, specificity, false negative rate, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and a summary receiver operator characteristic curve (SROC).
Results: Nineteen published studies were included to generate a pooled detection rate, comprising 2594 patients. The pooled detection rate was 0.98 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.96-0.99). Six studies finally met the criteria for meta-analysis, which yielded a pooled sensitivity of 0.92 (95% CI, 0.85-0.96), specificity 1 (95% CI, 0.97-1), and DOR 311.47 (95% CI, 84.11-1153.39). The area under the SROC was 0.9758. No publication bias was found.
Conclusion: ICG fluorescence-guided SLNB is viable for detection of lymph node metastases in breast cancer. Large-scale randomized multi-center trials are necessary to confirm our results.