Pelvic Exenteration Surgery: Experience of a Tertiary Cancer Institution in South India

Background Pelvic Exenteration (PE) is an ultra-radical surgical procedure. It is commonly indicated in cases of persistent or recurrent malignancy in the pelvic region post chemoradiation for tumor confined to the central pelvic region with a possible curative intent of R0 resectability. Methods& materials It is a retrospective study.27 female patients with advanced pelvic organ malignancies or recurrent carcinoma post chemoradiotherapy (CRT) who underwent treatment at Tamilnadu Government Multi SuperSpeciality Hospital, Madras Medical College, Chennai were chosen for the study. Later the inoperable cases were excluded from the study and only those who underwent pelvic exenteration surgery (19cases) were selected and details were collected from the Medical Records Department and analysed. Results In our study most of the patients were Carcinoma Cervix (63 %). Majority of the cases underwent Anterior Pelvic Exenteration (13). All operable cases were found to have to have very minimal peri-op complications (except one urine leak). Discussion Our study shows that most common indication for PE was Carcinoma cervix post CRT who underwent Anterior Pelvic Exenteration followed by Ileal Conduit reconstruction and had minimal peri-operative complications. Conclusion Though Pelvic Exenteration is a very uncommonly done ultra radical procedure, we demonstrated that PEs can be performed safely with minimal complications.