Blue dye injection does not induce dissemination of epithelial cells during SLN procedure in colon cancer patients

Introduction The sentinel lymph node (SLN) procedure for colon cancer patients has been increasingly performed over the past decade and has shown advantages regarding lymph node staging. However, there are concerns that the manipulation of the colon, particularly the blue dye injection, results in isolated tumor cell dissemination to lymph nodes. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to evaluate whether the blue dye injection during the SLN procedure for colon cancer induces epithelial cell dissemination to the regional lymph nodes using a fake SLN procedure as a model.