BREAST cancer has been increasing at an alarming rate in India. The disease causes 45,000 deaths in the country per year, growing at the rate of 8 per cent annually and there are 100,000 new cases every year. But there is a ray of hope. A new radioactive surgery called Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy (SLNB) can treat the spread of breast cancer. The surgery allows the patient to be discharged in a day, and is more cost-effective treatment.

“This technique does not cost more than Rs 10,000, and can detect spread of tumor much before it is visible,” said Manipal Hospital’s nuclear medicine consultant Parameshwaran. Manipal is the second hospital after the AIIMS, New Delhi, to have perfected this radioactive surgery technique.

Manipal Hospitals started testing its radioactive technique from 2003. So far, it has conducted more than 250 cases with 94 per cent success rate. Once operated, the patient does not need to stay overnight in the hospital, or for physical therapy exercises. Recuperation is faster and it is possible to get back to regular activities within a matter of few days.

Manipal’s new technique involves the injection of a small radioactive isotope with a hand-held probe into the affected area and around it. The device gives out readable and audible signals on the tumor.

“Area from where we get maximum signal, we assume that is the infected area and remove the cancer nodes in that area. It all requires a small prick smaller than two inches and the patient can be released in a day’s time,” said Dr Parmeshwaran.

The procedure involves injection of a blue dye and some form of radioactive material into the tumor to determine the pattern of spread of the tumor. This would lead to identification of the first lymph node into which a tumor drains, and the one that may most likely to contain cancer cells if a lymphatic spread has occurred the surgeon will remove this lymph node.

“While worldwide the accepted fault negation rate is 10 per cent, we have successfully kept the rate at 6 per cent,” said Parameswaran.

Surgery of breast cancer, also called mastectomy, usually, has unpleasant side effects associated with it.

Axillary lymph node dissection is the traditional technique of treating the spread of breast cancer that starts with the armpit area of the patient wherein the surgeon removes lymph nodes found in the armpit region. Lymph nodes are small rounded tissue, surrounded by connective tissue throughout the body to trap cancer cells or bacteria.

The traditional operative method has unpleasant side-effects such as numbness in the arm, extreme pain and limitation in daily life activities. Eighty per cent of patients, say doctors, can avoid this with early detection of cancer spread in the armpit. According to reports, if breast cancer is not checked now, about 460,000 women worldwide in the age group of 35 to 70 years will have the disease by 2012.