Study objective: To evaluate clinical outcomes of three surgical techniques during laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy.
Design: Prospective, randomized study (Canadian Task Force classification I).
Setting: Medical school-affiliated hospital.
Patients: Four-hundred twenty-seven women.
Intervention: By means of a computer-generated randomization code, patients were assigned immediately before operation to one of three groups according to type of surgical procedure: group 1, 147 women having one-layer closure of the vaginal cuff; group 2, 138 having two-layer closure of the vaginal cuff; and group 3, 142 having open vaginal cuff.
Measurements and main results: Patients were observed for morbidity during hospitalization, and 1 and 6 weeks and 6 months postoperatively. No significant differences were found among the groups for length of surgery, operative blood loss, postoperative hematocrit, length of hospital stay, postoperative febrile morbidity, frequency of pelvic and urinary tract infection, dyspareunia, postcoital spotting, vaginal discharge, and morbidity of the cuff (cellulitis, abscess formation, bleeding, hematoma, dehiscence). Operating time was greatest for two-layer closure. The frequency of postoperative granulation of cuff tissue and vaginal discharge was greater for group 1 than for the other two groups.
Conclusion: Two-layer closure of the vaginal cuff during laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy is associated with fewer instances of vaginal vault granulation and vaginal discharge than either one-layer closure or open vaginal cuff.