Introduction/Background Good oncologic outcomes after surgery have been reported for early-stage cervical cancer with a disease free survival of 90.6% at 3 years and 96.5% at 4.5 years respectively and an overall survival of 96% and 99%, respectively. For this subset of patients, lymph node status is a major prognostic factor since five-year disease free survival falls from 88% to 57% in case of lymph node metastasis.

Methodology We present a systematic review in which we included articles concerning the sentinel lymph node mapping and the future perspective of this procedure.

Results According to the international guidelines for the treatment of early-stage cervical cancer, the gold-standard treatment includes pelvic-lymph-node dissection (PLND) in order to adapt the treatment to a potential lymphatic metastasis. A lymph-node metastasis is present in 27% of early cervical cancers, leading to a high rate of overtreatment with unnecessary pelvic lymphadenectomy in three out of four patients. Moreover, this lymphatic surgery is known to induce significant morbidity and to lead to a decreased quality of life. The sentinel node detection rate is high in women with early stage cervical cancer, 96,3% with 82,0% bilateral detection. Sentinel nodel node mapping has a sensitivity of 96,3% and a negative predictive value of 98,7% in women with tumor size >20 mm.

Conclusion The current trend in cervical cancer management is focused on less aggressive strategy without jeopardizing oncologic outcomes. The sentinel lymph node biopsy is a sturdy alternative to systematic full pelvic lymphadenectomy for lymph node staging in early-stage cervical cancer. In regard with the abundant literature, there is a trend in the acceptance of sentinel lymph node biopsy in current clinical practice and in time maybe will became the gold standard of node stanging in early-stage cervical cancer.