Survival of women with early stage cervical cancer in the UK treated with minimal access and open surgery.

Abstract

The recent publication of two papers and an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has caused consternation in the gynaecological oncology community (4, 5). Both papers demonstrate a worse outcome for patients undergoing radical hysterectomy by the minimal access route compared to open surgery and thus question the dominant paradigm of the last decade that minimal access surgery is the preferred method by which to carry out radical surgery for cervical cancer. These studies raise many questions but the two most pressing are, firstly, have our patients been disadvantaged by our adoption of minimal access surgery and, secondly, how do we proceed as a gynaecological oncology community in the face of these data? This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.