[Complications following radical hysterectomy for cervical carcinoma]

Reporting and scoring treatment complications in gynecological cancers is difficult because of the variety of normal tissues, anatomical structures and treatment disciplines involved, making it impossible to compare series of patients treated in different institutions even with the same strategy. An international group of experts developed a multidisciplinary database to identify, score and report early and late normal tissue damage regardless of treatment strategy. The Franco-Italian Glossary provides clinicians with a comprehensive tool for scoring and describing complications regardless of the type of treatment delivered. The widespread use of this Glossary should at last allow objective comparisons on the nature and intensity of complications in patients treated in different Centers and/or with different strategies. The urinary tract is confirmed as the dominant site of complications after radical surgery with or without radiotherapy. Among the urological complications, the changes in bladder capacity and compliance appear as one of the major problems for the patients. The attempt to tailor the radicality according to tumour and patients characteristics seems to be one of the strategies to reduce the incidence of complications and their severity after surgical treatment of cervical cancer. The association of radiotherapy with radical surgery is generally recognized as an important risk factor in the determination of organ complications through vascular and fibrotic damage.