A new original investigation published online ahead of print in JAMA Surgery tackles the question of whether robot-assisted radical hysterectomy is associated with improved perioperative safety and early patient-reported outcomes compared with open surgery in early-stage cervical cancer.
Researchers performed a secondary analysis of the Robot-Assisted Approach to Cervical Cancer (RACC) randomized clinical trial of 900 patients, and found that, compared with open surgery, robot-assisted radical hysterectomy was associated with “fewer intraoperative complications, primarily lower-grade events, whereas postoperative complications, readmission, and reoperation were similar. Differences in early patient-reported outcomes were small.”
The researchers conclude that “the anticipated perioperative advantages of robot-assisted radical hysterectomy were largely confined to lower-grade intraoperative events and did not translate into improvements in clinically consequential postoperative outcomes or overall recovery.”
They add that the study is significant because “minimally invasive radical hysterectomy was introduced to reduce perioperative morbidity in early-stage cervical cancer, but concerns regarding oncologic safety have limited its use.”
They conclude that their “overall findings indicate no improvement in clinically consequential postoperative outcomes or recovery” when comparing robot-assisted and open approaches to radical hysterectomy.
