Near‐infrared fluorescence sentinel lymph node biopsy in vulvar cancer: a randomised comparison of lymphatic tracers

This study aims to confirm the feasibility of near‐infrared ( NIR ) fluorescence imaging for sentinel lymph node ( SLN ) biopsy in vulvar cancer and to compare the tracer indocyanine green ( ICG ) bound to human serum albumin ( HSA ) versus ICG alone. Women received 99m Tc‐nanocolloid and patent blue for SLN detection. Subsequently, women randomly received ICG : HSA or ICG alone. In 24 women, 35 SLN s were intraoperatively detected. All SLN s detected were radioactive and NIR fluorescent and 27 (77%) were blue. No significant difference was found between ICG : HSA and ICG alone. This trial confirms the feasibility of NIR fluorescence imaging for SLN mapping in vulvar cancer.