Minimally Invasive Surgery Rate as a Quality Metric for Endometrial Cancer
To determine the frequency with which Commission on Cancer-accredited hospitals met a metric of ≥80% minimally invasively performed hysterectomies for endometrial cancer and to compare the clinical outcomes of hospitals meeting this metric with those that did not. Retrospective cohort study. Hospitals caring for ≥20 endometrial cancer patients per year recorded in the National Cancer Database in 2015 were included. Women who had undergone hysterectomy for endometrial cancer and had an epithelial histology, a Charlson comorbidity score of 0, and stage I to III disease. Patient characteristics, patterns of care, and outcomes were compared between hospitals performing ≥80% minimally invasive hysterectomies and hospitals not meeting this metric. The hospitals (n = 510) treated 20 670 women with endometrial cancer. In 283 (55%) hospitals ≥80% of hysterectomies were minimally invasively performed (high-minimally invasive surgery [MIS] hospitals, overall MIS rate 89%). In the 227 hospitals that did not meet this metric, 61% of hysterectomies for endometrial cancer were performed using a minimally invasive approach. In high-MIS hospitals, patients were more likely to be white (87% vs 82%, p<.001), privately insured (53% vs 49%, p <.001), and have stage I disease (84% vs 82%, p = .002) and an endometrioid histology (79% vs 76%, p <.001). Surgery was more often performed robotically (80% vs 71%), and conversion to laparotomy was less likely (1.5% vs 3.2%, adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.47; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.39-0.57) (both p <.001). Patients treated at high-MIS hospitals were more likely to have undergone lymph node assessment at the time of surgery (76% vs 69%; aOR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.35-1.53) and been discharged on the same or next day (74% vs 57%; aOR, 2.27; 95% CI, 2.13-2.42) and were less likely to have an unplanned 30-day readmission (1.8% vs 2.9%; aOR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.53-0.77). An MIS rate of ≥80% for endometrial cancer is feasible on a national scale and is associated with other hospital-level measurements of high-quality care.