Lymphographic diagnosis of regional lymph-node metastasis from the cervical cancer

Lee, J M; Kang, S W; Kim, C Y; Moon, Y J

Abstract

Lymphography is well established method of demonstrating early lymph-node metastasis from the cervicalcarcinoma and may lead not only to reconsiderate the staging procedure but also to modify treatment plans. Bipedallymphography was performed according to the direct method of Kinmonth(1952) in which injection of contrast mediais preceded by the intra-lymphatic injection of a vital dye which serves to faciliate visualization of the lymphvessels during the surgical cutdown procedure required for their direct puncture. The clinical matarials consistedof the 24-hour lymphadenograms of 23 patients with carcinoma of the uterine cervix radiographed at the Dept. ofRadiology, St. Mary's Hospital, from June. 1975 to June 1976. The age ranged from 28 to 63 years. Preoperativelymphography was performed in all patients prior to a radical hysterectomy. The lymphographic diagnosis wascompared to the tissue diagnosis of the lymph-nodes to determine the accuracy of lymphography in detecting themetastasis of carcioma of the uterine cervix. The accuracy of lymphography in detecting lymphnodal metastasis ofcarcinoma of uterine cervix was 82.6%. The great majority (93.2%) of lymph-nodes which have metastasis showirregular moth-eaten filling defects and the sizes ranged from 0.5cm to 2.0cm with the majority between 0.5-1.5cm.The size of metastatic lymph-nodes tend to increase in proportion to the greatest diameter of marginal fillingdefect. The size of filling defect in the lymphography did not correlate to clinical staging of cervicalcarcinoma.