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A study of recurrence, complication and survival rates in patients with early stage vulval cancer undergoing sentinel lymph node sampling: a single-centre experience

  • Gynecologic Oncology
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Groin sentinel lymph node (SLN) identification and removal has become a standard of care for women with clinical early stage vulval cancer. There is evidence to support safe detection of the SLN with minimal morbidity. The purpose of this study is to report our experience of managing patients focusing on patient selection, adverse events, quality assurance of the procedure and any benefits and/or disadvantages to patients.

Methods

This was a retrospective study of patients with clinical early stage vulval cancer in a cancer centre over 5 years. Notes and hospital data were reviewed including admissions to emergency departments. Statistical software was used for the statistical analysis and the Kaplan Meier survival curve was generated to present survival rates.

Results

61 cases were analysed. A total of 156 nodes have been removed and positive nodes were identified in 14 cases. In total, 9 women (14.75%) had disease recurrence within 5 years from primary surgery. Overall, 4 patients (6.5%) developed groin recurrence. In 3 of these patients there was isolated groin recurrence (4.9%). The median length of admission was 3 days and 6 cases were managed as day cases.

Conclusions

Since the closure of the GROINNS-2 trial we have continued the procedure of SLN identification for women with clinical early stage vulval cancer. We have shown high level of adherence to our protocol and survival and complication rates comparable to other studies on the same field. There were a few patients managed as day-case which was of benefit to the patients.

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Data availability

We confirm that the dataset is available to be shared if requested to do so.

Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

DSS:

Disease-specific survival

FU:

Follow-up

GROINNS V:

GROningen INternational Study on Sentinel nodes in Vulvar cancer

IFL:

Inguinofemoral lymphadenectomy

Mm:

Millimetres

MDT:

Multidisciplinary team

OS:

Overall survival

patient no:

Patient number

post-op:

Post-operative

SLN:

Sentinel lymph node

SPSS:

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

VIN:

Vaginal intra-epithelial neoplasia

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gynaecological Oncology, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK

    Emmanouil Katsanevakis, Zun Zhen Ong, David Nunns & Ketankumar Gajjar

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Trust, Derby, UK

    Anuja Joshi

  3. Department of Clinical Radiology, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK

    Richard O’Connor

Authors
  1. Emmanouil Katsanevakis
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  2. Anuja Joshi
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  3. Zun Zhen Ong
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  4. Richard O’Connor
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  5. David Nunns
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  6. Ketankumar Gajjar
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Contributions

EK: project development, Data collection, Data analysis, Manuscript writing. AJ: project development, Data collection. ZZO: project development, Data collection. RO: project development. DN: project development, manuscript editing. KG: project development, manuscript editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emmanouil Katsanevakis.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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This was a retrospective anonymised data collection; therefore, no ethic approval is required.

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Katsanevakis, E., Joshi, A., Ong, Z.Z. et al. A study of recurrence, complication and survival rates in patients with early stage vulval cancer undergoing sentinel lymph node sampling: a single-centre experience. Arch Gynecol Obstet 308, 561–567 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-023-06968-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-023-06968-z

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