Practice patterns and 90-day treatment-related morbidity in early-stage cervical cancer

Background To evaluate the impact of the Laparoscopic Approach to Cervical Cancer (LACC) Trial on patterns of care and surgery-related morbidity in early-stage cervical cancer. Methods This is a retrospective, a multi-institutional study evaluating 90-day surgery-related outcomes of patients undergoing treatment for early-stage cervical cancer before (period I: 01/01/2016–06/01/2018) and after (period II: 01/01/2019–06/01/2021) the publication of the results of the LACC trial. Results Charts of 1295 patients were evaluated: 581 (44.9%) and 714 (55.1%) before and after the publication of the LACC trial, respectively. After the publication of the LACC trial, the number of patients treated with minimally invasive radical hysterectomy decreased from 64.9% to 30.4% (p < 0.001). Overall, 90-day complications occurred in 110 (18.9%) and 119 (16.6%) patients in the period I and period II, respectively (p = 0.795). Similarly, the number of severe (grade 3 or worse) complications did not differ between the two periods (38 (6.5%) vs. 37 (5.1%); p = 0.297). Overall and severe 90-day complications were consistent between periods even evaluating stage IA (p = 0.471), IB1 (p = 0.929), and IB2 (p = 0.074), separately. Conclusions The present investigation highlighted that in referral centers the shift from minimally invasive to open radical hysterectomy does not influence 90-day surgery-related morbidity.