[Sentinel lymph notes in female reproductive tract cancer]

To reduce extensive radical procedures and decrease morbidity in gynecologic malignancies, much effort is being focused on implementing less aggressive interventions. Two different approaches such as lymphatic mapping and lymphoscintigraphy are currently used to identify sentinel lymph nodes. In vulvar and cervical carcinomas, metastatic spread of disease commonly follows stepwise progressive drainage. Thus, sentinel lymph node identification may significantly reduce the number of patients undergoing unnecessary, extensive lymphadenectomy in the absence of metastatic disease. The addition of novel techniques, such as histopathologic ultrastaging, step sectioning, and immunohistochemistry staining, will help increase the accuracy and rate of detection of the disease. Any definitive statements can be made to the validity of sentinel lymphadenectomy until we got data with long-term follow-up.