The morbidity after SLN biopsy alone is not negligible but significantly lower compared with level I and II ALND. SLN biopsy can be performed with similar short- and intermediate-term morbidity in academic and nonacademic centers.

With our new method for determining the position of the bladder neck, perineal ultrasound is a reliable technique that allows reproducible static and dynamic evaluation. Lateral chain urethrocystography is superior to perineal ultrasound only if bladder neck funneling is the aim of the evaluation; it is inferior if bladder neck mobility during maximal Valsalva is being investigated.

Background. This study was performed to identify pathologic and clinical features that best correlate with lymph node metastasis and disease free survival among patients with Stage I and II cervical cancer treated by radical hysterectomy. Methods. Three hundred‐seventy patients with complete clinical information and pathologic material, including cone and cervical biopsies, were selected for analysis. Of these patients, 301 with clinical stages I and II disease were the subject of this paper. The results of patients with microinvasive carcinoma of the cervix, as defined by the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists (depth of invasion $3 mm and no lymph node vascular space invasion), were reported previously1 and excluded from this analysis. Patients with small cell carcinoma of the cervix were found to have a very poor prognosis (disease free 5‐year survival of 36%) and were also excluded from this analysis (Sevin BU, Nadji M, Metkoch MW, Lu Y, Averette HE. Unpublished data, 1995). Variables studied were patient age, weight, race, marital status, and economic status; tumor size; depth of invasion; lymph node–vascular space involvement; cell type; tumor grade; lymph node metastasis; and number of lymph nodes removed. The influence of these variables on survival was examined by univariate analysis with use of Cox's regression model and the log rank test for comparison of survival curves. Results. Factors that predict disease free survival, ranked by degree of significance, were depth of invasion, tumor size, lymph node–vascular space invasion, number of positive nodes, tumor volume, clinical stage, and tumor extension to the vagina or surgical margins. Conclusions. Radical hysterectomy and bilateral lymphadenectomy is standard therapy for patients with Stage IB and IIA carcinoma of the cervix. A variety of surgically defined risk factors predict 5‐year disease free survival, and many of these factors are related. Identification of independent risk factors requires a multivariate analysis of data. Cancer 1995; 76:1978–86.

The multivariate survival tree analysis maximally separates patients with early stage invasive carcinoma of the cervix into 3 subgroups with 5-year DFS of 91%, 68%, and 43%, respectively. The authors excluded patients with microinvasive carcinoma (SGO, Society of Gynecologic Oncologists), who have an excellent DFS of 100%, and patients with small carcinoma, who have a poor DFS of 36.4% based on cell type alone, to define independent risk factors that maximally separate the remaining patients by DSF. The survival tree prognostic scoring system is easy to apply, and only requires DI (mm), LVSI (+, -), LNM, and age to assign an individual patient to one of three risk groups.