Penile carcinoma: an endemic disease in developing countries

Abstract

The January-February 2007 issue of the International Braz J Urol presents interesting contributions from different countries, and as usual, the editor's comment highlights some papers. Starting with this issue, the editor will choose the subject of an appealing article for title the editor's comment. Doctor Gonzaga-Silva and co-workers, from Federal University and Cancer Hospital of Ceara, Brazil, studied on page 58 the results of the use of isolated gamma probe for sentinel node penile carcinoma detection and discussed the incidence of false negative rates. Impressive, during the last 5 years, the authors have been identified 3 new cases of penile carcinoma at the cancer hospital, every month. Twenty-seven newly diagnosed penile carcinoma patients (T1, T2, N0) were included in this prospective study. The authors found that isolated gamma probe technique for sentinel node penile carcinoma has a very low sensibility and a high false negative rate and concluded that this isolated technique is unreliable.