Tertiary prevention strategies for micrometastatic lymph node cervical cancer: A systematic review and a prototype of an adapted model of care.

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, (4,882 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.