December 6, 2018 – Open Surgery Benefit

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: When it comes to surgery for cervical cancer, traditional methods may be best, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Cervical cancer may be best treated with an open, traditional type surgery rather than more minimally invasive approaches, two recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine seem to conclude. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, describes one of them.

Nelson: The randomized trial randomized women with early stage cervical cancer to an open procedure versus a minimally invasive approach. Some of those turn out to be robotic and some of those are laparoscopic and what they found was a significant difference. Women who had the minimally invasive surgery  were more likely to have their cervical cancer recur.  86% were free of disease with minimally invasive surgery  and 96-97 were free of disease  with the open procedure. That’s a significant concern. :30

A second study examined the same issue using a different approach but reached the same conclusion. Nelson says for now, women should likely choose the open approach to get the best outcome. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.