Indocyanine Green-Guided Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy for Periocular Tumors

Purpose: To compare the accuracy of indocyanine green (ICG)-guided sentinel lymph node biopsy to sentinel lymph node biopsy performed with technetium-99m in eyelid and in conjunctival malignancies. Methods: Review of a consecutive series of adult patients undergoing sentinel lymph node biopsy for eyelid and conjunctival malignancies between 2009 and 2013. Only patients undergoing both ICG-guided and technetium-99m-guided sentinel lymph node biopsies were included. Results: Five patients were identified: 3 women and 2 men. Four had conjunctival melanoma and 1 had eyelid melanoma. ICG aided in localization and confirmation of the sentinel nodes identified by technetium-99m, and all sentinel lymph nodes identified by technetium-99m were identified by ICG. All patients who underwent both sentinel lymph node modalities had negative lymph node biopsies for micrometastasis, but metastatic disease eventually developed in 1 patient. No safety concerns were identified with the use of ICG in the ocular adnexal region. Conclusions: For certain periocular malignancies, ICG-guided sentinel lymph node biopsy safely identifies sentinel lymph nodes intraoperatively possibly to a similar extent compared with technetium-99m-guided methods.