Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is an important tool for accurate staging of patients with melanoma. There is an ongoing debate whether the procedure provides therapeutic benefits or not.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>We wanted to analyze 10‐year data from an academic teaching hospital.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Patients and methods</jats:title><jats:p>During 1999–2009, 977 patients with early cutaneous melanoma have been treated. Of these, 419 patients had tumors ≥1 mm thickness. Patients with head and neck tumors were excluded, leaving 364 patients (202 men and 162 women). <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SLNB</jats:styled-content> was not performed in 163 patients but was performed in 201 patients. For correction of bias, tumors >4 mm thickness were excluded from further statistical analysis.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>The detection rate of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SLN</jats:styled-content> was 94.4%. False negative <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SLN</jats:styled-content> were observed in 8.9%. Adverse effects occurred in 5.5%. The rate of positive <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SLNB</jats:styled-content> was 16.4% and lymph node involvement 20%. Patients undergoing <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SLNB</jats:styled-content> had a lower relapse rate (10.6% vs. 33.3%; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001). The most important finding is an almost 50% lower total death rate and melanoma‐related death rate in the <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SLNB</jats:styled-content> subgroup (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001 for both).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Sentinel lymph node biopsy is an accurate instrument for melanoma staging to detect occult regional lymph node involvement. Data suggest a positive effect on relapse‐free survival. The observation of improved long‐term survival needs validation in prospective multicenter trials. The limitations of this study were that it was a single center retrospective analysis.</jats:p></jats:sec>