Physiology
The spread of some forms of cancer usually follows an orderly progression, spreading first to regional lymph nodes, then the next echelon of lymph nodes, and so on, since the flow of lymph is directional. In layperson language, some cancers spread in a predictable fashion from where the cancer started. In these cases, if the cancer spreads it will spread first to lymph nodes (lymph glands) close to the tumor before it spreads to other parts of the body. The concept of sentinel lymph node surgery is to determine if the cancer has spread to the very first draining lymph node (called the "sentinel lymph node") or not. If the sentinel lymph node does not contain cancer, then there is a high likelihood that the cancer has not spread to any other area of the body.
Read more about this topic: Sentinel Lymph Node
Famous quotes containing the word physiology:
“A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The world moves, but we seem to move with it. When I studied physiology before ... there were two hundred and eight bones in the body. Now there are two hundred and thirty- eight.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realise that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)