Radical vulvectomy and bilateral inguinal-femoral lymphadenectomy through separate incisions—experience with 100 cases

Over a 6-year period 100 patients with vulvar cancer were treated by radical vulvectomy and bilateral inguinal femoral lymphadenectomy performed through separate incisions. The average age of the patients was 68.8 years. Ninety patients had squamous carcinoma, six had melanoma and four had other vulvar malignancies. FIGO staging was stage 1–46, stage II-25, and stage III-23, and stage IVa-6. Twenty-seven patients were found to have spread of tumor to groin nodes, 21 unilateral and six bilateral. For patients with squamous carcinomas, groin nodes were positive in four of 45 (8.9%) with tumor diameter < 2 cm vs. 17 of 42 (40.5%) with tumors> 2 cm. In 60 patients with unilateral squamous tumors, no isolated contralateral node metastases were found, however two of 13 patients (15.4%) with positive ipsilateral nodes had positive contralateral nodes also. One patient with negative nodes developed bilateral recurrent tumor in the skin bridges and subsequently died. Overall 5-year survival corrected for death from intercurrent illness was 74.6%. Corrected survival by stage for squamous carcinomas was as follows: stage I-96.7%, stage II-85%, stage III-45.8% and stage IV-50%.