Background: The aim of this study was to retrospectively compare, in a series of 127 consecutive women, the safety, morbidity, and recurrence rate of total laparoscopic radical hysterectomy (TLRH) with lymphadenectomy and abdominal radical hysterectomy with lymphadenectomy (ARH) for early cervical carcinoma.
Methods: A total of 127 consecutive patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage Ia1 (lymphvascular space involvement), Ia2, and Ib1 early cervical cancer, 65 of whom underwent TLRH and 62 of whom underwent ARH with pelvic lymph node dissection, comprised the study population. The para-aortic lymphadenectomy with the superior border of the dissection being the inferior mesenteric artery was performed in all cases with positive pelvic lymph nodes discovered at frozen section evaluation.
Results: The median blood loss in the ARH group (145 ml; range, 60-225 ml) was significantly greater than TLRH group (55 ml; range, 30-80 ml) (P < .01). The median length of hospital stay was significantly greater in the ARH group (7 days; range, 5-9 days) than TLRH group (4 days; range, 3-7 days) (P < .01). The median operating time was 196 min in the TLRH group (range, 182-240 min) compared with 152 min in the ARH group (range, 161-240 min) (P < .01). No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups when the recurrence rate was compared.
Conclusions: Total laparoscopic radical hysterectomy is a safe and effective therapeutic procedure for management of early-stage cervical cancer with a far lower morbidity than reported for the open approach and is characterized by far less blood loss and shorter postoperative hospitalization time, although multicenter randomized clinical trials with longer follow-up are necessary to evaluate the overall oncologic outcomes of this procedure.