Abstract: A method of detecting an accessory cancer lesion, comprising an administration step wherein indocyanine green is administered to a living body, an irradiation step wherein a target organ suspected of having cancer is surgically exposed and irradiated with excitation light of indocyanine green, an imaging step wherein a near-infrared fluorescence intensity distribution image from the excited indocyanine green in the target organ is obtained, and an identification step wherein an area having the near-infrared fluorescence in the intensity distribution image, excluding the area detected in preoperative examination or intraoperative macroscopic observation, is identified as an accessory cancer lesion.

Abstract: A sentinel lymph node detecting apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: a light source unit 2, illuminating an excitation light 10 and an illumination light 11 onto a biological observation location 20 that includes a sentinel lymph node 21 near a tumor, into which a fluorescent dye that emits fluorescence is injected; an optical filter 3, transmitting a fluorescence image 11 and a normal image 13; an image pickup device 5, disposed integral to the light source unit 2 and picking up the fluorescence image 11 and the normal image 13 transmitted through the optical filter 3; and an image display device 7, displaying the observation images that have been picked up. The wavelength of the illumination light 11 is set to a value close to the wavelength of the fluorescence emitted from the fluorescent dye.

Abstract: A sentinel lymph node detecting apparatus 1 includes: an excitation light source unit 2 that illuminates an excitation light 10 onto a living body observation portion 20 including a sentinel lymph node 21 near a tumor into which a fluorescent dye that emits fluorescence is injected; an optical filter 3 that transmits a fluorescence image 11; an image pickup device 4 that is integral with excitation light source unit 2 and picks up fluorescence image 11 transmitted through optical filter 3; an adjusting device 5 that adjusts the picked-up observation image; and an image displaying device 6 that displays the adjusted observation image. Adjusting device 5 adjusts at least one of a luminance and a contrast of the observation image. A lymph node detecting apparatus that is simple in apparatus arrangement, is easy to handle, and enables good images to be obtained is thereby realized.