Whether patients with early stage cervical cancer need radical surgery

  The clinical staging method according to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stipulates that all patients with stage I to IIA cervical cancer are indicated for surgery, and stage IIB or above are selected for radical radiotherapy, which has been internationally agreed and promoted as a National Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline. The choice of surgery is based on clinical staging, which has subjective factors. Therefore, the FIGO clinical staging principles stipulate that when two clinical stages are available for the same patient, the earlier stage is chosen as the clinical stage. For example, when the same patient is clinically determined as IIA and IIB by two doctors, stage IIA should be selected as the clinical diagnosis. Current advances in imaging can compensate for the lack of clinical examination. preoperative MRI can determine the presence of parametrial infiltration and guide the choice of treatment modality. PET/CT has a sensitivity of 86% for lymph node metastasis, which is also valuable for treatment selection. Patients with ⅠB2 or ⅡA2, with a poor prognosis due to tumor diameter greater than 4 cm, can undergo direct radical surgery and decide whether to perform simultaneous radiotherapy after surgery according to risk factors.  For these patients with larger size, neoadjuvant chemotherapy is often used followed by surgery and postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy in domestic clinic. A prospective randomized clinical study at the Cancer Hospital of Fudan University showed that neoadjuvant radiotherapy, arterial interventional chemotherapy and intravenous chemotherapy resulted in tumor volume reduction, but no survival benefit was seen. There is no high-level evidence that neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves patient survival, and based on the principle of avoiding triple therapy as much as possible in the treatment of cervical cancer, most international oncology centers either operate directly or choose radical radiotherapy for stage IB2 and IIA2 patients.