The number of tumor cells spread to sentinel lymph nodes affects melanoma prognosis
Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 04:32
in Health & Medicine
Cancer cell spread to the sentinel node -- the lymph node to which cancer cells are most likely to spread from a primary tumor -- is a risk factor for melanoma death. The prognosis of a patient largely depends on the number of disseminated cancer cells per million lymphocytes in the sentinel node. Even very low numbers were found to be predictive for reduced survival.