The risk of uterine cancer recurrence after a comprehensive surgical staging is only slightly greater if the procedure is performed laparoscopically, compared with the more invasive laparotomy, a new study has found.
The US researchers randomly allocated around 2,000 patients with clinical stages I and II uterine cancer to laparoscopy and a further 1,000 to laparotomy, for hysterectomy, salpingo-oophorectomy, pelvic cytology, and pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy.
With a median of around five years of follow-up, there were 210 recurrences after laparoscopy and 99 after laparotomy. Overall 350 deaths were reported, 229 following laparoscopy and 121 with laparotomy. The hazard ratio for laparoscopy over laparotomy was estimated at 1.14, which fell short of the study’s noninferiority definition.
However, actual recurrence was well below...
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