A case-control study of robot-assisted type III radical hysterectomy with pelvic lymph node dissection compared with open radical hysterectomy.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare robotically assisted hysterectomy (RAH) with open (ORH) type III radical hysterectomy in the treatment of early-stage cervical cancer. The outcomes of 51 consecutive patients who underwent RAH were compared with the outcomes of 49 patients who underwent ORH. There were no differences with regard to patient demographics. There were significant differences between the groups with regard to operative blood loss (P < .0001), operative time (P = .0002), and lymph node retrieval (P = .0003), all of which were in favor of the RAH cohort. All patients with RAH were discharged on postoperative day 1, compared with a 3.2-day average hospitalization for the cohort with ORH. The incidence of postoperative complications was 7.8% and 16.3% for the RAH and ORH cohorts, respectively (P = .35). Robotic type III radical hysterectomy with pelvic node dissection is feasible and may be preferable over open radical hysterectomy in patients with early-stage cervical cancer. Further study will determine procedure generalizability and long-term oncologic outcomes.