Total laparoscopic hysterectomy for early stage endometrial cancer in obese and morbidly obese women

Abstract

This is a retrospective observational study, where we have evaluated the role of total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH) in obese and morbidly obese patients with early stage endometrial cancer. Our study illustrates that low conversion rates are achievable when appropriately trained surgeons undertake this procedure. All the women with high BMI were operated on laparoscopically in preference to laparotomy, unless there was an obvious contraindication such as a very large uterus or disseminated disease. We have also shown low conversation and complication rates for our patients, in particular a low rate of wound infection. This is in contrast to the high rate of wound infection and prolonged hospital stay reported for obese patients in the literature. Our study shows that TLH for endometrial cancer in obese women is feasible, safe and is likely to be cost-effective and adds to the weight of evidence for its use in this condition.

Keywords::

• Disease-free survival
• endometrial cancer
• morbidity
• obesity
• total laparoscopic hysterectomy

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contribution of Ling Ye for his help with data collection.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.