The optimal type of treatment of the non-small lung cancer has not been found, yet. Systematical mediastinal lymphadenectomy, which is the method of choice in the surgical resection of the lung cancer, is potentially risky and its role is still unclear. The sentinel lymph node technique represents a promising alternative to the standard treatment. The hitherto reached results have to be evaluated with care and greater studies are necessary. According to our opinion, the best results can be expected in stage Ia NSCLC. The combination of the intraoperative scintigraphy and blue dye technique will be probably necessary in the next studies. The review gives the current state-of-art and some suggestions to the future.

        Key words: non-small cell lung cancer – sentinel node – systematical mediastinal lymphadenectomy