Laparoscopic surgery in women with endometrial cancer: the learning curve

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of increasing surgeons’s experience in the laparoscopic surgery of women with endometrial cancer (EC) on the surgical outcome of these patients. Study design: Data were obtained from a prospectively collected database of 108 patients two oncolaparoscopic centers in Czech Republic who underwent laparoscopically assisted surgical staging (LASS) from April 1996 to March 2001. Patients were arranged in chronological order and divided into three groups, based on the date of their surgery. The three groups were compared in patient characteristics and surgical outcome using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Wilcoxon rank sum test. Setting: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Endoscopic Training Center, Baby Friendly Hospital Kladno, Czech Republic. Results: The three groups were similar in patient characteristics. Operative times for laparoscopic staging with pelvic lymphadenectomy (LN) decreased significantly from mean of 156.3 min for group 1 to 142.8 min for group 3 ( P