Lymph nodes (LNs) are an essential organ in an immune system, and lymphatic vessels connect them. Their primary function is to maintain the health of the body via filtering morbific material from the lymphatic fluid. In the case of cancer metastasis, cancer cells are disseminated from primary tumor via the bloodstream to the distant sites. Clinically, detection of metastasis within sentinel lymph node (SLNs) is significantly predictive of prognosis with implications for the patient's survival and adjuvant therapy. The limited studies available report that dissection of normal lymph nodes (LNs) is involved in the activation and rapid growth of latent tumors in distant metastasis.
Here we show that dissection of LNs with and without tumor cells may activate distant metastasis in the mice. Tumor cells were inoculated intravenously and intranodally into MXH10/Mp/lpr-lpr mice to create a metastatic lung mouse model.
Bioluminescence images indicated tumor cells in the lung were activated after dissection of subiliac lymph node (SiLN) with and without tumor cells. While, no luciferase activities were detected in the lung without dissection group excluding intravenous inoculation group.
The results indicated that LN dissection might affect secondary tumor formation, and the metastatic lymph node dissection may increase metastasis if the nodes might contain tumor cells. Furthermore, removal of normal lymph nodes may induce metastases in the distant organs if the organs contain tumor cells. Our results indicate dissection/biopsy of lymph node metastasis may have the potential hazard of inducing metastases in the distant organs.
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All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.