Fabrice Lecuru, MD, PhD, George Pompidou European Hospital, Paris, France, speaking at ASCO 2009: Sentinel Node Biopsy Is Effective, Less Invasive Option for Early-Stage Cervical Cancer Patients, Compared with Current Standard: A prospective multicenter study conducted by researchers in France suggests that the majority of women with early-stage cervical cancer can safely undergo sentinel node (SN) biopsy – a technique in which only one to three lymph nodes are removed to determine whether cancer has spread – in lieu of the traditional, more invasive pelvic lymph node removal. This study showed that SN biopsy was just as useful as full pelvic lymph node removal for identifying even small amounts of cancer cells that spread to lymph nodes in atypical areas of the pelvis.