Outpatient laparoscopic extraperitoneal aortic nodal dissection for locally advanced cervical carcinoma

The detection of aortic nodal metastasis via radiologic methods is limited with our current technology, although improvements have been made with newer imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET). Surgical staging has shown to alter radiation treatment fields up to 43% of the time in patients with negative preoperative imaging. This limitation has led some investigators to approach the detection of aortic nodal metastasis via a laparoscopic extraperitoneal surgical approach. In this article, we describe step by step our adaptation of this novel minimally invasive procedure for outpatient surgical staging of patients with locally advanced cervical cancer.