Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the surgical outcomes, complications, and costs between laparoscopic staging and laparotomic staging for early-stage ovarian cancer.

Methods: We evaluated 113 patients who underwent laparoscopy (n = 26) or laparotomy (n = 87) for staging. We retrospectively analyzed patients' demographics and operative variables, including operative time, estimated blood loss, lymph node count, hospital stay, complications, postoperative pain, and return to normal activity. In addition, costs for laparoscopy and laparotomy groups were also compared.

Results: The mean operation time was longer in laparoscopy group compared to laparotomy group (227.6 minutes vs 184.6 minutes, P = 0.016). The laparoscopy group had less intraoperative blood loss, less transfusion requirement, shorter postoperative hospital stay, earlier general diet intake, shorter time to adjuvant chemotherapy, and lower postoperative pain score after 6, 24, and 48 hours compared with the laparotomy group. The mean number of lymph node retrievals was comparable between the groups. The incidence of operative complications was lower in the laparoscopy group (7.7%) relative to the laparotomy group (23.0%). The total average cost for staging completed via laparotomy was $1237 and that via laparoscopy was $1998, with significant difference.

Conclusions: Complete surgical staging by laparoscopy was achieved in all cases with comparable operative time and less operative complications compared with laparotomy for selected patients with early-stage ovarian cancer. However, the operation costs for laparoscopy were significantly higher than the operation costs for laparotomic staging surgery.