Minimally Invasive Surgery for Cervical Cancer Linked to More Deaths, Cancer Recurrence than Open Surgery, Studies Find

For radical hysterectomies in patients with early cervical cancer, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is linked to more deaths and more cancer recurrence than open surgery, according to a pair of studies published October 31, 2018, in the New England Journal of Medicine. In a randomized trial, researchers assigned 319 patients to MIS (laparoscopic or robot-assisted surgery) and 312 patients to open surgery. Three years after surgery, 97% of patients in the open surgery group had survived without recurrence of disease, compared with only 91% of patients in the MIS group. The differences between the groups remained even after the researchers adjusted for stage of disease, lymphovascular invasion, lymph node involvement, body-mass index, and age. Overall survival at three years also differed: 99% in the open surgery group versus 94% in the MIS group.