**9. Conclusion**

Early OCSCCs have a risk of subclinical nodal metastases to the draining cervical lymph nodes, which has a negative impact on the patient's prognosis and survival. The subclinical nature limits the ability to identify these with current imaging techniques including a PET scan. Despite this, there is recent high quality evidence demonstrating that treating this disease surgically has superior survival outcomes compared with an observation strategy. However, the patients *without* subclinical nodal metastases (up to 80%) do not gain any benefit by undergoing a neck dissection.

SLNB technique represents a minimally invasive technique allowing treatment de-intensification without compromising the oncological efficacy. SLNB has been demonstrated to provide an accurate and safe staging procedure to assess for subclinical nodal metastases with added benefits over an END including identification of out-of-field drainage, as well as a more detailed pathological assessment of the SLN However, a high quality multidisciplinary approach is required including accurate preoperative lymphoscintigraphy, precise surgical technique and detailed pathological assessment to ensure reliable results and good patient outcomes.

*Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy for Early Oral Cavity Squamous Cell Carcinoma DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99410*
