Exploration of Targeted Anti-tumor Therapy

Table 2. Pre-surgical emerging techniques for sentinel lymph node (SLN) assessment or prediction in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Technique	Principle	Clinical value	Main limitations	Performance	Availability
SLN scintigraphy (^99mTc)	Radiotracer-based lymphatic mapping	Reference standard for SLN biopsy (SLNB); high negative predictive value (NPV)	Nuclear medicine facilities required	NPV ≈ 93%	Medium
Indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence [near-infrared (NIR)]	Optical visualization of lymphatic flow	Radiation-free; real-time intraoperative guidance	Limited penetration depth	Comparable to standard SLNB	Medium
Superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) tracers	Magnetic particle uptake in SLNs	Alternative to radioisotopes	Dedicated probes; limited diffusion	Comparable to standard SLNB	Low
Hybrid tracers (ICG-^99mTc)	Combined radioactive and fluorescent mapping	Higher SLN detection; complementary guidance	Increased procedural complexity	Superior detection rates	Low
AI/radiomics	Machine-learning feature extraction	Improved prediction of occult metastases	Retrospective data; limited validation	Accuracy ~90–93%	Experimental

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VC: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft. GDG: Formal analysis. GG: Writing—review & editing. GLC: Supervision. All authors read and approved the submitted version.

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