Objective:

The present study is a review of our experience of the surgical options for vulvar cancer using The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) classification.

Materials and methods:

Retrospective analysis of records of patients diagnosed with vulvar carcinoma operated with or without coadyuvance in the Oncology service of the General Hospital of Mexico in a span of 34 years. For the statistical analysis, the Epi Info version 7.2 program was used.

Results:

Patients were divided into groups, those with pre-invasion or minimal invasion disease were resolved with local excision or simple vulvectomy 24 (16%). Patients with invasive cancer were treated with conservative surgery with or without unilateral lymph node dissection 16 (15%); radical vulvectomy with inguino femoral lymphadenectomy 94 (62%) (47 block surgeries and 47 with separate incision); ultra-radical surgery 11 (7%) (6 abdomino-perineal resections and 5 pelvic exenterations). 127 patients had follow-up and 62 of them had a disease-free survival rate of 30 months (48.8%). The overall survival in pre-invasion or minimal invasion disease were 91.3% (21/23), in stage IB-II 75.5% (37/49), in stage III 31.7% (13/41) (p=0.00007) and in stage IVA 21.4% ( 3/14 ).

Conclusions:

Although a more individualized and less radical treatment is suggested, in this series only 14.5% of patients, could be resolved with conservative surgery. In addition, the lymph node status was the most important prognostic factor for survival.