Prognostic Factors and Impact of Minimally Invasive Surgery in Early-stage Neuroendocrine Carcinoma of the Cervix.

Study Objective: To investigate the prognostic factors and impact of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) in surgically treated early-stage high-grade (HG) neuroendocrine cervical carcinoma (NECC).

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea.

Patients: Patients with International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2009) stages IB1 to IIA HG NECC.

Interventions: All patients underwent radical hysterectomy (RH) with a laparotomy or an MIS approach.

Measurements And Main Results: Between 1993 and 2017, 47 patients with International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology stages IB1 to IIA1 HG NECC were initially treated with RH. Clinicopathologic variables of patients were retrospectively reviewed from electronic medical records. The median follow-up period was 28.2 months (interquartile range, 17.1-42). Stage IB1 disease was the most common (70.2%). Twenty-nine patients (61.7%) underwent RH by MIS. The overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 63.8% and 38.3%, respectively. Lymph node metastasis and resection margin involvement were significant risk factors for DFS (hazard ratio [HR], 2.227; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.018-4.871; p =.045 and HR, 6.494; 95% CI, 1.415-29.809; p =.016, respectively) and OS (HR, 3.236; 95% CI, 1.188-8.815; p =.022 and HR, 12.710; 95% CI, 1.128-143.152; p =.040, respectively). The Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed no significant differences in OS and DFS between the laparotomy and MIS groups (50% vs 72.4% log-rank p =.196, 38.9% vs 37.9% p =.975).

Conclusion: Lymph node metastasis and resection margin involvement were poor prognostic factors of survival outcomes in initially surgically treated early-stage HG NECC. No difference was observed in the survival outcomes between the MIS and laparotomy approaches.