How do I determine if a table exists in a SQL Server database in SQL Server 2008?
If you query the sysobjects table, with a query like

SELECT * FROM sysobjects WHERE xtype = 'U' AND name = 'yourTableName'


xtype = 'U' is a user table

you can then wrap this is an IF EXISTS statement

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sysobjects ...)
BEGIN
    ' do your stuff here if it exists
END