Purpose: We found a need for balancing the application of clinical guidelines and tailored approaches to follow-up of cervical cancer (CC) patients in the lymph node micrometastatic (MICs) setting. This review aimed to determine the current knowledge of management of MIC-positive CC cases.
Methodology: We addressed prognostic and risk of recurrence monitoring impacts associated with MIC+ cases. The electronic databases for literature and relevant articles were analysed.
Results: Fifteen studies, (4882 patients), were included in our systematic review. While the results show that MICs significantly worsen prognosis in early CC. A tertiary prevention algorithm for low volume lymph node disease may stratify follow-up according to the burden of nodal disease and provide data that helps improve follow-up performance.
Conclusion: MICs worsen prognosis and should be managed as suggested by the algorithm. However, this algorithm must be externally validated. The clinical impact of isolated tumor cells (ITC) remains unclear.
Keywords: Algorithm; Cervical cancer; Micrometastasis; Prevention; Review; Sentinel lymph node.
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