Surgery for uterine (endometrial) and cervical cancer

The procedures to treat uterine (endometrial) and cervical cancer are the following:

Radical Hysterectomy Procedure: It is performed in women with cervical cancer in its early stages. Radical hysterectomy is the removal of the uterus with part of the surrounding tissue (parametrium) close to the bladder, the rectum, and the pelvic wall.

This procedure is followed by the removal of pelvic lymph nodes (pelvic lymphadenectomy). This is a high complexity surgical procedure that has to be performed by gynecologic oncologists with enough training to minimize the complications of the procedure.

Pelvic organs, as well as other organs of the body, are innervated by autonomic nerves. This means that they are nerves that our consciousness cannot control and whose function is controlling rectal and bladder emptying, as well as generating orgasms during sexual intercourse

During a radical hysterectomy, when sectioning the tissue surrounding, the autonomic nerves can be sectioned involuntarily because they are very delicate.

However, the nerves can be preserved with a careful surgical technique, reducing the possibility of post-surgical complications

Radical hysterectomy is a procedure that we perform routinely through minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery.

Procedure Sentinel lymph node identification: the sentinel lymph node is the first lymph node in a specific body region that receives the metastasis coming from the tumor. To identify and remove it, a dye is injected into the cervix of the uterus that migrates to the pelvic sentinel lymph node.

Afterward, we proceed to its identification and removal by minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery. There are often between 1 and 3 lymph nodes, instead of the 15-20 lymph nodes that we usually take out when we perform a complete extraction of pelvic lymph nodes (pelvic lymphadenectomy).

The main advantage is to significantly reduce the morbidity and complications associated with the procedure.