Describing The Learning Curve For Laparoscopic Sentinel Lymph Node Mapping For Endometrial Cancer

Objective: Sentinel lymph node (SLN) mapping is an acceptable method of lymph node evaluation in clinically early-stage endometrial cancer. A still relatively new technique, sentinel lymph node (SLN) mapping for endometrial cancer, has no defined learning curve. As such, current recommendations to perform the first 20 procedures with concomitant lymphadenectomy and maintain a detection rate >90% are based on breast cancer data. We sought to determine how many cases of SLN mapping for endometrial cancer are needed before the success rate reaches the literature-comparable value of 86%, as well as the gold standard rate of >90%, among a cohort of surgeons adopting the technique.