Failure to find sentinel nodes

whatevah

Just had surgery (lumpectomy and sentinel node excision) at Dana Farber and found out 10 days later that they did not get one lymph node. Is this malpractice?

I now have a scar for no reason and no pathology results to guide my treatment.

Has this ever happened to anybody else?

Anonymous

I'm wondering if they did the dye injection for you? It's a radioactive dye that makes it easier for the surgeon to find the lymph nodes (since they're usually very small and can be hidden by other tissue). I would definitely consult with the surgeon immediately and see if they can go back in and get at least one lymph node. Best of luck going forward.

whatevah

Yes, they injected the dye in the morning around 9 am. My surgery was supposed to start at 11:30, but I was not wheeled into the operating room until 2. Not sure if the dye evaporated or what happened. Was it a resident who actually did the operation? Or was there a problem with the injection? The surgeon said that the sample was only 'fatty tissue" and this is very "unusual."

fifthyear

In my case, after the dye injection they waited for a few hrs then wheeled me into surgery. My surgeon said to me before he started was this "If i can not find the blue dye or sentinal node(s) I will do a full dissection". I was very scared, the first thing when I woke up was to ask how many nodes? He found them and took 4.