Feasibility of flap reconstruction in conjunction with intraoperative radiation therapy for advanced and recurrent head and neck cancer.

Background: Radiation is a known risk factor for poor wound healing. Patients undergoing intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) typically receive higher cumulative doses to their wound beds than patients treated with conventional radiation therapy. We review our experience with IORT in patients undergoing resection of head and neck cancer and flap reconstruction.

Lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy: a surgical perspective.

Lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy has been rapidly and widely adopted by the surgical community as an oncologic equivalent elective lymphadenectomy for regional node staging in both melanoma and breast cancer. Despite being the de facto standard of care, it remains a highly unstandardized procedure surrounded by many unresolved controversies for surgeons who perform the procedure. The controversies are as basic as the definition of the real sentinel node and as specific as the appropriate localization pharmaceutical(s), site of injection, timing of the injection, and utility of external scintigraphy (dynamic versus.