Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
Correspondening author: Dae-Yeon Kim Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 88 Olympic-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul 05505, Korea E-mail: kdyog@amc.seoul.kr
Received September 30, 2022 Revised February 1, 2023 Accepted March 3, 2023
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Radical hysterectomy is a standard treatment method for early cervical cancer in those who do not need fertility sparing [1]. Bladder dysfunction and sexual disorder are the most common complications due to pelvic autonomous nerve injury during radical hysterectomy [2]. Nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy is a technique that reduces complications of conventional radical hysterectomy by preserving the pelvic autonomous nerve system, including the hypogastric nerve, pelvic splanchnic nerve, and inferior hypogastric nerve [3]. As there has been a paradigm shift in cervical cancer surgery from uniform to tailored radical surgery, nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy has widely been performed in the clinical field [4]. However, the techniques for nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy are not standardized, and complicated pelvic nerve anatomy makes performing nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy challenging for most surgeons [5]. Herein, we report a case report of a practical nerve-sparing method with robot radical hysterectomy for cervical cancer treatment.
A 51-year-old woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage Ia2 underwent a nerve-sparing robot radical hysterectomy. The da Vinci® Xi Surgical system (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) platform was used for the surgery. After developing the pararectal space caudally from the infundibulopelvic ligament level, both hypogastric nerves were separated laterally from the sacrouterine and rectouterine ligaments. The separated nerves were taped with a rubber band. During the radical hysterectomy procedure, both hypogastric nerves were easily identified, and nerve damage was avoided.
There was no voiding difficulty after removing the foley catheter. The patient was discharged without any complications associated with the surgery. The resection margin was free of the tumor with no metastasis in the lymph nodes.
This simplified technique of nerve-sparing robot radical hysterectomy is a feasible option for cervical cancer treatment.
Video related to this article
The video related to this article can be found online at 10.36637/grs.2022.00136.
Notes
Conflict of interest
No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
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