Minimally invasive hysterectomy does not appear to compromise long-term survival for women with endometrial cancer, according to a study of 6,304 patients with stage I to III uterine cancer, including 65.7% who underwent abdominal hysterectomy and 34.3% who underwent minimally invasive hysterectomy. Researchers found:

• Performance of minimally-invasive hysterectomy increased from 9.3% in 2006 to 61.7% in 2011.

• Robot-assisted procedures accounted for 62.3% of minimally invasive operations.

• Compared with abdominal hysterectomy, minimally invasive hysterectomy was associated with lower overall complication rate (22.7% vs 39.7%), and lower perioperative mortality (0.6% vs 1.1%), but women having a minimally invasive procedure were more likely to receive adjuvant pelvic radiotherapy (34.2% vs 31.3%) and brachytherapy (33.6% vs 31.0%).

• The complication rate was higher after robot-assisted hysterectomy (23.7%) vs laparoscopic hysterectomy (19.5%).

• There was no association between use of minimally invasive hysterectomy and either overall or cancer-specific mortality.

Citation: Wright JD, Burke WM, Tergas AI, et al. Comparative effectiveness of minimally invasive hysterectomy for endometrial cancer. [Published online ahead of print February 1, 2016]. J Clin Oncol. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.65.3212.