Wiki Yes or No with injection in CPT 38900?

[leanneshelton@uabmc.edu]

CPT 38900 for Intraoperative mapping states it includes the injection “when performed”. However everything I’ve ever read shows an injection being done. My surgeons, for years, have required that the injection be done to use this code. Now a new surgeon is saying you don’t have to inject. She just uses a probe to find the nodes. So do you think CPT 38900 is still justified in this scenario? Thank you!

 

[csperoni]

I realize this is about 15 months later, but because someone just liked it, appeared on my radar today.
Is it possible this new provider is actually doing a radioactive identification?
I'm in gynonc, and they frequently do IC green dye injection (non radioactive) and firefly optics on the daVinci to identify the sentinel nodes when doing staging for endometrial cancers.
For vulvar cancers, they sometimes do a radioactive tracer injection (tilmanocept 99) with a probe which is instead coded with 38792.
It is certainly possible this is a technology that I am just not aware of, but I didn't think there was a probe that could identify sentinel nodes without first injecting SOMETHING.