Magtrial: Magtrace® as Tracer for Sentinel Lymph Node Detection in Early Stage Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains the tumour with the most unfavourable prognosis within the field of gynaecological oncology. The incidence of ovarian cancer in the Netherlands in 2008 was 14.5 per 100.000, with 12.3 deaths per 100.000. In the US in 2007 the incidence was 13.0 per 100.000 and there were 8.2 deaths per 100.000. The high mortality rate is partially due to the fact that approximately 75% of patients is diagnosed with advanced stage EOC. The remaining 25% of patients are diagnosed in an early stage, which require a complete surgical staging procedure including pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy. Although this lymphadenectomy is standard-of-care, it leads to significant morbidity in these patients. Mainly direct postoperative complications such as infection, repeat surgery and early death have been reported. Also, long-term complications such as lymph cysts or lymphedema have been described. A potential method to reduce this morbidity and mortality, as already been described in other cancers such as breast cancer and vulvar cancer, is utilizing a sentinel lymph node (SLN) technique. By identifying and resecting the SLN, the patient is potentially spared form lymphadenectomy.