Total pelvic exenteration for the treatment of advanced primary or recurrent pelvic neoplasia

Introduction: Complete resection with clear margins in locally advanced pelvic visceral tumors, primary or recurrent, occasionally requires total pelvic exenteration (TPE).

Methods: We reviewed the results of EFA in 34 consecutive patients operated on between June 2006 and December 2013.

Results: Median age was 62 (40-82) years; 24 (70%) were male. The tumor origin most frequent was advanced primary rectal tumor (APRT), with 19 cases (55.9%) and most common type of exenteration was supraelevator (61.8%). R₀ resection was achieved in 24 (70.6%) patients and in 16 (85%) of the APRT. Fifteen (79%) patients had pT₄ APRT, and 4 (20%) pN +. Reconstruction of the bowel and bladder was performed with two stomas in 17 cases (50%), colorectal anastomosis and Bricker in 11 (32.3%) and wet double barreled colostomy in 6 (17.6%). There was no postoperative mortality; 23 (67,5%) patients had complications, and 5 (14.6%) required a postoperative reoperation to solve them. Median follow-up was 23 (13-45) months. Overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) at 2 years were 67% and 58% respectively, and the median OS and DFS was 59 months (95% CI 26-110) and 39 months (95% CI 14-64), respectively. The DFS of R₀ was significantly better (p=0.003) than R₁.

Conclusions: TPE is a potentially curative procedure for advanced pelvic visceral malignancies with similar morbi-mortality than other extended excisional surgery.