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A 12-year trial headed by University of Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer Research lead surgeon professor Andreas Obermair has concluded that keyhole surgery should be the preferred standard of care for women needing a hysterectomy as a result of endometrial cancer. The research has been published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Endometrial cancer is that which occurs in the lining of the uterus or womb, and most commonly presents during menopause.
“Disease-free survival was 81.3 per cent at the four-and-a-half-year mark for the abdominal surgery group compared to 81.6 per cent in the laparoscopic group,” Obermair said. “We are now confident that laparoscopic keyhole surgery is better for women requiring surgery for early stage uterine cancer.”
The study involved 760 patients and 21 surgeons across Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
“The study showed adopting minimally invasive surgery as a preferred standard of care would significantly reduce the number of patients developing severe surgical complications, reduce hospital stay time and ultimately reduce health care expenditure," said Obermair.
This finding runs contra to the notion that the less invasive surgery option leads to a shorter life expectency, as expanded upon by Queensland University of Technology's Institute of Public Health and Biomedical Innovation associate investigator professor Monika Janda.
“Our data now clearly shows that this is not the case and women can have better quality of life in the short term and as good survival outcomes," Janda said. “Thirty-thousand women in Australia each year require a hysterectomy for a variety of reasons. Women should discuss with their specialist if they are suitable for a laparoscopic approach.”
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