Current Status of Lymph Node Imaging in Bladder and Prostate Cancer

The bladder and the prostate have a multitude of primary lymphatic landing sites, making the sentinel node concept inapplicable in patients with bladder or prostate cancer. However, some imaging techniques may be helpful in guiding surgeons for the removal of suspicious nodes that would not have been resected in a standardized template. Despite the multitude of new imaging techniques available today, a meticulous histologic workup of lymph nodes retrieved by an extended pelvic lymph node dissection still has the highest accuracy for detection of lymph node metastases in bladder or prostate cancer.