Role of Radical Surgery in Early Stages of Vaginal Cancer-Our Experience.

Objectives: The objective of our present study was to evaluate the efficacy of radical vaginectomy with or without radical hysterectomy in patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage I and II vaginal cancers.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective study was carried out on 11 patients aged 35 to 78 years. All the patients underwent radical surgery for vaginal cancer from April 2010 till June 2015. Kaplan-Meier analyses were used to calculate the disease-free survival and overall survival at 12 months.

Results: The mean age of patients was 53.2 years. Ten patients were with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage I, whereas one had stage II vaginal cancer. The histology was squamous cell cancer in 9 patients and small cell neuroendocrine cancer in 2 patients. The lesion was confined to the upper two third of the vagina in 8 cases, and the lower one third was involved in 3 cases. All the patients underwent radical surgery. Lymph node dissection was done in 9 patients out of whom lymph nodes were positive in 3 patients. Two patients had positive margins. Adjuvant treatment was given to patients with positive margins or positive nodes. Five patients did not require any adjuvant treatment, and 1 patient defaulted adjuvant treatment. One patient developed vesicovaginal fistula. Over a follow-up period ranging from 5 to 67 months, local recurrence developed in 1 patient, whereas no patient died of disease. One patient was lost to follow-up at 15 months. The 12-month disease-free survival was 88.9%, and 12-month overall survival was 100%.

Conclusions: Stage I and selected stage II vaginal cancer patients have good outcomes in terms of survival and local tumor control if managed judiciously by initial surgery followed by selective adjuvant therapy.