A Systematic Review on Overall Survival and Disease-Free Survival Following Total Pelvic Exenteration

Total Pelvic Exenteration (TPE) is a radical operation for malignancies in which all of the organs inside the pelvic cavity, including the female reproductive organs, the lower urinary tract, and a part of the rectosigmoid are removed. In this study, we aimed to conduct a systematic review to assess the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) following TPE.

This systematic review is composed of a comprehensive review of PubMed and Scopus databases with various related keywords to synthesis the overall survival and disease-free survival following TPE. The Synthesis Without Meta-analysis guideline was used to summarize the results.

We included the results of 39 primary studies and the results revealed that one-year OS of gynecological cancer in patients who have undergone TPE ranged from 50.0% to 72.0% and the 5-years OS ranged from 6.0% to 64.6%. The one-year survival rate of colorectal cancer patients was reported to be over 80% in almost all studies. The 3-year survival rate of patients varied from 25% to 75% and the lowest 5-year survival rate was 8% and the highest survival rate was 92%. To synthesis the disease-free survival rate in colorectal cancer, ten studies were included and one-year recurrence rate was 9.1% and the one-year DFS was reported as 61.0%. Three-year recurrence rate study was 20.4% and 3 and 5-year DFS ranged from 22.0% to 78.0%.

The results suggested that DFS in primary advanced cancers is higher than locally recurrence tumors. This review showed that patient overall survival and disease-free survival rates have increased over time, especially at high volume centers that are more experienced and possibly better equipped. Therefore, it can be suggested that the attitude towards PE as a palliative surgery can be turned into curative surgery.