Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is the gold standard in managing early-stage breast cancer and prevent total axillary dissection in more than 70% of situations. The standard markers for SLNB are radioisotope and blue dye, either independently or together. Recent studies have shown the use of indocyanine green (a dye that is being used for diagnostic purposes in many medical fields) as a fluorescent tracer with similar or even better detection rate than the traditional methods for SLNB.

This study's main purpose is to assess the feasibility and identification rate of SLNB by ICG as single tracker agent in patients with clinically node-negative breast cancer.

For period of three years prospective single center cohort study was conducted and all cN0 staged breast cancer patients underwent SLNB using ICG as the only one tracker were recruited.  2ml of 25mg/ml ICG was injected subcutaneously in the periareolar site or in the upper outer quadrant in the beginning of every procedure. The sentinel nodes were identified by infrared camera after 10 min following injection. Afterwards, the removed sentinel lymph nodes were sent for histological staging. The feasibility and the identification of the technique were evaluated.

For the studied period 47 patients met the inclusion criteria and were evaluated. In 40 of the patients, the sentinel lymph nodes were found and excised. The average number of lymph nodes that were removed was 3. 

The use of ICG as a single tracer agent for SLNB in patients with cN0 breast cancer has shown to be a safe and feasible approach, according to the results obtained in this study. Further researches are needed for evaluation the sensitivity and specificity of the technique.