Abstract: Cervical cancer is a common gynecological malignancy and a serious threat to women’s health. Although radical hysterectomy with systematic pelvic lymphadenectomy (PLND) remains the standard treatment for early-stage disease, most patients are ultimately be found to be node-negative. For these patients, PLND offers no survival benefit, but causes lifelong morbidities, including lymphedema, which severely impairs quality of life. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) uses specific tracers to precisely identify and resect first-draining nodes for histopathological assessment. This technique can accurately determine regional nodal status while sparing node-negative women from comprehensive lymph node dissection, thereby markedly reducing surgical trauma and complication rates. This review systematically summarizes commonly employed tracing methods, clinical applications, recent advances, and implementation challenges of SLNB in early cervical cancer, with the aim of providing an evidence-based framework for its standardized adoption in China.