Performance of Indocyanine Green Fluorescence for Detecting Lymph Node Metastasis in Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The use of sentinel lymph node dissection in several cancers has been gaining attention with the emergence of indocyanine green fluorescence. We performed a meta-analysis to assess the diagnostic performance of indocyanine green fluorescence in detecting lymph node metastasis in prostate cancer patients.A literature search was conducted using PubMed, Cochrane Library, and SCOPUS on November 30, 2020, to identify eligible studies. Studies were eligible if they investigated the diagnostic performance of indocyanine green fluorescence before pelvic lymph node dissection in prostate cancer patients and reported the number of true positives, false positives, false negatives, and true negatives on lymph node-based analysis in comparison to histopathologic findings in the dissected specimen.Our systematic review covered 11 studies published between 2011 and 2020, with 519 patients, and our meta-analysis included 9 studies with 479 patients. Based on lymph node analysis of indocyanine green fluorescence, the results showed pooled sensitivity and specificity at 0.75 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.49 to 0.90) and 0.66 (95% CI 0.61 to 0.70), respectively. The diagnostic odds ratio was 6.0 (95%CI 2 to 21). Several lymphatic drainage routes also showed sentinel lymph nodes localized outside the ordinal pelvic lymph node template.We noted relatively low diagnostic performance for lymph node metastasis, suggesting that indocyanine fluorescence may not currently be a viable alternative to pelvic lymph node dissection in prostate cancer patients. However, this technique shows novel lymphatic drainage routes and underscores the importance of lymph nodes not removed in ordinary dissection.