Eight patients with advanced cervical carcinoma who were eligible for primary pelvic radiotherapy combined with concurrent cisplatin chemotherapy or pelvic exenteration underwent a pre-treatment robot assisted transperitoneal laparoscopic para-aortic lymphadenectomy.
We isolated from 1 to 38 para-aortic nodes per patient and had one para-aortic node positive patient who was treated with extended doses of pelvic radiotherapy. We did not encounter any major complications and post-operative morbidity was low.
Robot assisted transperitoneal laparoscopic para-aortic lymphadenectomy is feasible and provides the surgeon with greater precision than classical laparoscopy. Larger prospective multicentric trials are needed to validate the generalised usefulness of this technique.