[Lymph node management of cN0 penile cancer]

In penile cancer, lymph node metastasis is the main known prognostic factor affecting patients' survival. Early inguinal lymph node dissection or the resection of clinically occult lymph node metastases improves survival compared with removal when the metastases become clinically apparent. Micrometastatic lymph node involvement is undetectable by current imaging modalities. Nomograms based on clinical and histopathological tumor characteristics are unreliable in predicting lymph node involvement. Consequently, in penile cancer patients with clinically normal inguinal lymph nodes (cN0) and a tumor stage ≥pT1, G2 surgical lymph node exploration is recommended. Radical inguinal lymphadenectomy is no longer recommended because of its invasiveness and high complication rate. Modified lymphadenectomy and dynamic sentinel lymph node surgery allow the detection of lymph node-positive patients with sufficient certainty. Thereby, the sentinel lymph node approach offers the least invasiveness and high sensitivity. Extended inguinal lymphadenectomy is still recommended in the case of positive nodes.