Lymphadenectomy

Lymphadenectomy consists on the surgical removal of one or more groups of lymph nodes. It is almost always performed as part of the surgical management of cancer.

This is usually done because many types of cancerhave a marked tendency to produce lymph nodemetastasisearly on in their natural history. This is particularly true of melanoma, head and neck cancer, differentiated thyroid cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancerand colorectal cancer. It has been said on occasion that "cancer surgeryis the surgery of the lymph nodes".

The better known examples of lymphadenectomy are axillary lymph node dissection for breast cancer; radical neck dissection for head and neck cancerand thyroid cancer; D2 lymphadenectomy for gastric cancer; and total mesorectal excision for rectal cancer.

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphadenectomy Wikipedia article Lymphadenectomy.