J Breast Cancer.  2013 Mar;16(1):1-11.

Potential Applications of Quantum Dots in Mapping Sentinel Lymph Node and Detection of Micrometastases in Breast Carcinoma

• Alam F
• Yadav N

Abstract

Breast cancer cure aims at complete elimination of malignant cells and essentially requires detection and treatment of any micrometastases. Here, we present a review of the current methods in use and the potential role of the quantum dots (QDs) in detection and visualization of sentinel lymph node and micrometastases in breast cancer patients. The traditional histopathological, immunohistochemical, and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction procedures being used for micrometastases detection had serious drawbacks of high false negativity, specificity variations and false positivity of the results. Photon emission fluorescence multiplexing characteristics of the quantum dots make them potentially ideal probes for studying the dynamics of cellular processes over time such as continuous tracking of cell migration, differentiation, and metastases. In breast cancer, QDs based molecular and genomic detections had an unparallel high sensitivity and specificity.

Keyword

Breast neoplasms; Early detection of cancer; Neoplasm micrometastasis; Quantum dots; Sentinel lymph node

MeSH Terms

Breast
Breast Neoplasms
Cell Movement
Early Detection of Cancer
Fluorescence
Humans
Lymph Nodes
Neoplasm Metastasis
Neoplasm Micrometastasis
Nitriles
Pyrethrins
Quantum Dots
Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
Sensitivity and Specificity
Track and Field
Nitriles
Pyrethrins

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