Initial experience of laparoscopic management of apparent early endometrial cancer

The traditional treatment for endometrial cancer is a staging laparotomy. In patients with apparent early stage disease, laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy has been employed as an alternative. We present a retrospective uncontrolled case series of 16 cases with apparent stage I endometrial cancer from November 1994 to April 2001 managed by laparoscopic assisted surgical staging (LASS) at the Gynaecological Oncology Department, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Singapore. We have analysed outcome measures in terms of intra-operative complications, surgical morbidity and length of hospital stay, and have evaluated treatment success in terms of conversion to laparotomy, recurrent disease and mortality. Our findings indicate that LASS is a viable option in selected patients with apparent early endometrial cancer. Our initial experience with this modality of treatment thus proves that it has great potential in both treatment success and reduction of surgical morbidity. A larger case controlled trial would be ideal in order to substantiate these benefits.