The Adoption of Single-port Laparoscopy for Full Staging of Endometrial Cancer: Surgical and Oncology Outcomes and Evaluation of the Learning Curve

Study Objective To study the safety, feasibility, learning curve, and surgical outcome for single-port laparoscopic full staging of endometrial cancer. Design A retrospective study (Canadian Task Force classification II-3). Setting A university academic hospital. Patients Women with endometrial cancer undergoing single-port laparoscopic full surgical staging. Interventions This was a single-center, retrospective consecutive study of patients undergoing single-port laparoscopic full staging of endometrial cancer from March 2012 to December 2015. Measurements and Main Results One hundred ten consecutive cases were included in the study. The mean age was 63 years (standard deviation = 14), and the mean body mass index was 34 kg/m² (standard deviation = 7). Medical comorbidity was noted in 62% (68/110) of patients, and 55% (61/110) of patients had previous abdominal surgery. Preoperative histology included grade 1 (63%), grade 2 (23%), grade 3 (4%), papillary serous (6%), clear cell (3%), and mixed (1%). Postoperatively, 73% of patients were stage I, 2% were stage II, 21% were stage III, and 4% were stage IV. The conversion rate to multiple ports or to laparotomy was 6.3%. The average total surgical time was 186 minutes. Comparing the last 30 cases of our cohort with the first 20, there was a significant improvement in the reduction of the total operative time (191 vs 152 minutes, p =.036), estimated blood loss (389 vs 121 mL, p =.002), conversion rate (20 % vs 0%, p =.02), and rate of surgical complication (10% vs. 0%, p =.03). The readmission rate was 11% (12/110) with 75% of those patients being readmitted for surgical indications and 25% for medical indications. The rate of ventral hernia was 1.8% (2/110) with an average follow-up of 298 days (31–1085 days). Conclusion Single-port laparoscopic staging of endometrial cancer is a safe and feasible technique to introduce into a gynecologic oncology practice that is compatible with other minimally invasive modalities with similar complication rates, discharge timing, and operative times. Drastic improvement in surgical time can be seen after approximately the first 20 cases.