Early-stage endometrial cancer: Sentinel node or lymphadenectomy?

The endometrial cancers are mainly discovered at an early stage justifying a less aggressive treatment. The therapeutic choices are today based on preoperative classifications themselves based on histoprognostic factors of the tumor and its extension measured in MRI: consequently, lymph node dissection in case of low and intermediate risk cancer is not systematically achieved. But a number of patients have lymph node involvement finally, probably justifying an adapted surgical and adjuvant treatment. The technique of sentinel node would compensate the weaknesses of preoperative prognostic evaluation. This new operative technique needs to be precised and evaluated: the topics subject to discussion are the technical implementation, the definition of its quality standards and the management of its histological results especially in cases of low volume lymph node metastasis. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.