Oklahoma City, OK -- If given the choice, most cancer survivors would choose less time in the hospital, less time recovering from surgery and more time enjoying life.

Now, a decade’s worth of research funded by the National Cancer Institute and conducted by the Gynecologic Oncology Group at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, has provided that choice. The study, which appears this month in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that laparoscopic surgery for uterine cancer is a better choice than traditional open surgery for most women. It is good news for the more than 40,000 women each year who are diagnosed with the deadly disease.

Researchers found that, by using laparoscopic surgery, surgeons were able to reduce patients’ hospital stays by half and significantly reduce the incidence of serious complications.

“It was much more dramatic than I think any of us expected,” said Joan Walker, M.D., a gynecologic oncologist with the OU Cancer Institute. “Our hope was that laparoscopy would not be harmful because it is more technically challenging. It is quite astounding as a physician to go to see your patient the next morning and find that she is sitting up, ready to go home. This is quite different than the traditional open surgery where patients cannot go home for four days. We hoped for equivalence, or no increase in complication rates, and we got better. So, we were really thrilled with that.”

The study enrolled more than 2,600 patients nationwide with 446 treated at the OU Medical Center. Researchers focused on a process called uterine cancer staging where doctors perform surgery to remove the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries as well as examine the abdominal cavity to determine if the cancer has spread. Previously, this was done with traditional open surgery.

Walker noted that some patients are not good candidates for laparoscopic staging, but the study also provided a new tool to more accurately determine which patients will be good candidates based upon weight and body mass index.

Although the research evaluated only laparoscopic cancer surgery, Walker pointed out that robot-assisted surgery probably will provide the same advantages found in laparoscopic cancer surgery and could offer this less invasive approach to more women, even some of those women who would not be good candidates for laparoscopic staging.