Laparoscopic surgery in morbidly obese patients with endometrial cancer

Introduction: surgery in morbidly obese patients as a treatment for gynecologic cancer is a challenge for surgeons and anesthesiologists, since it is associated with the processes of increasing intraoperative and postoperative complications. Objective: to describe the main results gained with the use of laparoscopic surgery in patients with morbid obesity and endometrial adenocarcinoma treated at the Instituto Nacional de Oncología y Radiobiología (INOR) of Havana, Cuba, from January 2019 to March 2020. Method: a descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study was carried out in 22 patients, with body mass index more than 40 kg/m2 and diagnosis of endometrial adenocarcinoma, who underwent laparoscopic surgery. The primary data was obtained from the medical records, which were used to create a database in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to synthesize all the information. Results: the predominant age group was between 61 and 70 years old. Endometrial adenocarcinoma was the most frequent cancer (77.27%). The degree of differentiation was well differentiated, infiltrating less than 50 % of the myometrium. The predominant surgical staging was IA (72.72%). Transoperative bleeding was 78.9 ± 5.7 ml (range between 10 and 200 ml), mean operative time was 82 min (range 75-132 min), and hospital stay was less than 24 hours (90.90%). Surgical conversion was performed in 4.54% of cases. Conclusions: morbidly obese patients may benefit from the laparoscopic approach for the treatment and laparoscopic surgical staging of endometrial carcinoma, which decreases morbidity and hospital stay.