Laparoscopic assessment improves case selection for exenterative surgery in recurrent cervical and endometrial cancer.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the role of laparoscopy in the case selection of patients for pelvic exenteration to treat recurrent cervical or endometrial cancer. Pelvic exenteration is a rare surgical procedure performed by specialised multidisciplinary surgical teams. We performed a review of 55 consecutive laparoscopies for patients being evaluated for possible exenterative surgery for recurrent cervical or endometrial cancer at a single centre in the UK with a significant exenterative surgical practice. All patients had no evidence of metastatic disease on imaging prior to the laparoscopy. Despite thorough radiological assessment laparoscopy detected peritoneal, nodal or extrapelvic metastases in 20.8% of cases. 5.6% of the patients who underwent exenterative surgery were found to have unresectable pelvic disease intraoperatively. In these cases, the extent of disease was not determined radiologically or during the initial exploratory laparotomy. In our view, laparoscopic assessment is an essential component of the pre-operative work up of patients with recurrent cervical or endometrial cancer being considered for exenterative surgery.Impact statementWhat is already known on this subject? Pelvic exenteration is potentially curative in cases of recurrent pelvic malignancy. Case selection is essential to determine those patients without metastases and with resectable pelvic disease - this will improve patient outcomes, avoid the unnecessary morbidity of major surgery, as well as the psychological consequences of abandoned procedures. The only two previous studies, published in 1998 (Plante and Roy 1998) and 2002 (Köhler et al. 2002) have shown laparoscopic assessment to be safe and improve case selection.What do the results of this study add? This study provides evidence that in the context of modern imaging modalities, including PET-CT scans, laparoscopic assessment continues to improve case selection for exenterative surgery.What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? This study provides further evidence of the benefit of laparoscopy in the assessment of patients being considered for exenterative surgery for recurrent pelvic cancer. Routine laparoscopy improves case selection and will enhance patient experiences and outcomes.

Venous thromboembolism at time of diagnosis of ovarian cancer: Survival differs in symptomatic and asymptomatic cases.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the impact on survival of symptomatic and asymptomatic venous thromboembolism (VTE) at time of diagnosis of primary ovarian malignancy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The clinical records of 397 consecutive cases of primary ovarian malignancy were studied. Clinical, pathological and survival data were obtained. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Of 397 cases, 19 (4.8%) were found to have VTE at diagnosis, of which 63.2% (n=12) were asymptomatic. VTE was significantly associated with reduced overall median survival (28 vs. 45 months, p=0.004). Decreased survival was associated with symptomatic VTE compared to patients with asymptomatic VTE (21 vs. 36 months, p=0.02) whose survival was similar to that of patients without VTE. Decreased survival remained significant in symptomatic patients after controlling for stage of disease at diagnosis, cytoreductive status and adjuvant chemotherapy use. Overall these data suggest for the first time that symptomatic but not asymptomatic VTE prior to primary treatment of ovarian cancer is an independent adverse prognostic factor.