Effect of surgical approach on risk of recurrence after vaginal brachytherapy in early-stage high-intermediate risk endometrial cancer

The objective was to determine if surgical approach affects time to recurrence in early-stage high-intermediate risk endometrial cancer (HIR-EC) treated with adjuvant vaginal brachytherapy (VBT). In this retrospective cohort study, HIR-EC patients treated with VBT between 2005 and 2017 were identified and those who received open or minimally invasive hysterectomies (MIS) were included. Clinical and surgical variables were analyzed and time to recurrence was compared between surgical groups. We identified 494 patients, of which 363 had MIS hysterectomies, 92.5% had endometrioid histology, 45.7% were stage IA and 48.0% stage IB. Open hysterectomy patients had higher BMIs (p = 0.007), lower rates of lymph node sampling (p