[Curative pelvic exenteration for recurrent cervical carcinoma in the era of concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy. A systematic review].

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this review is to assess the preoperative management in case of recurrent cervical cancer, to assess patients for a surgical curative treatment.

METHODS: English publications were searched using PubMed and Cochrane Library.

RESULTS: In the purpose of curative surgery, pelvic exenteration required clear margins. Today, only half of pelvic exenteration procedures showed postoperative clear margins. Modern imaging (RMI and Pet-CT) does not allow defining local extension of microcopic disease, and thus postoperative clear margins. Despite the same generic term of pelvic exenteration, there is a wide heterogeneity in surgical procedures in published cohorts.

CONCLUSION: Because clear margins are required for curative pelvic exenteration, but are not predictable by preoperative assessment. The larger surgery, i.e. the infra-elevator exenteration with vulvectomy, could be the logical surgical choice to increase the rate of clear margins and therefore, recurrent cervical carcinoma patient survival.