In 1991, I introduced lymph-node mapping and sentinel lymph-node biopsy for melanoma and other selected skin cancers. Together, these procedures can determine during surgery whether a tumor has spread to surrounding lymph nodes.
Using lymph node mapping, we can pinpoint the precise lymph node into which a nearby tumor is likely to travel first (called the sentinel node). If a biopsy of the sentinel node indicates cancer spread, the surrounding lymph nodes are removed. But if there is no evidence of cancer in the sentinel node, patients are spared from additional lymph node surgery.