Background: Surgical resection with negative margins is the foundation of extremity sarcoma management. Failure to achieve negative surgical margins can result in local recurrence (LR), a potentially devastating complication. Indocyanine green (ICG) is a US FDA-approved fluorophore previously used to guide carcinoma resections. We investigated the potential of ICG as an intraoperative guide during experimental sarcoma resection.
Methods: Fifty 6-week-old immunocompetent Balb/c female mice received left proximal tibia paraphyseal injections of 5 × 105 K7M2 murine osteosarcoma cells. Animals were separated into two groups (n = 25 each): (1) ICG-assisted surgical resection; and (2) no ICG-assisted resection. Resections were performed 4 weeks after primary tumor engraftment. All animals received 7.5 ug ICG via retro-orbital injection 12 h prior to surgery. ICG fluorescence measurements and clinical evaluations were performed 4 weeks after resection to detect LR.
Results: Eleven of 25 animals from each group developed gross tumors. Four weeks after resection, group 1 had 0/11 tumor recurrences, while group 2 had recurrences in 9/11 (81.8%) experimental mice (p < 0.0002) (Fig. 2). There was a 100% NPV in group 1, and no tumor recurrence with fluorescence-free margins after the primary surgery. Group 2 had a 100% positive predictive value for the development of an LR if any fluorescent signal was present at the surgical margin after resection.
Conclusion: Intraoperative ICG guidance led to reliably negative surgical margins and a diminished LR rate. Given the benign safety profile of ICG and its prior clinical success, these results could be immediately translatable to the clinical realm.