Surgical treatment of obese female patients represents a real challenge. Over the last decade, minimally invasive techniques for hysterectomy have emerged. These approaches reduce the invasiveness of standard surgical procedures while maintaining efficacy and feasibility.

To evaluate the rates of perioperative, early, mid-term and late postoperative complications in very obese [body mass index (BMI) ≥35 and <40 kg/m2] and severely obese (BMI ≥40 kg/m2) women who underwent total (non-radical) hysterectomy.

Design: A prospective comparative multi-centre non-randomized study.

In total, 328 consecutive total (non-radical) hysterectomies were performed at seven teaching gynaecological centres. Of these, 153 (46.6%) were performed using an open laparotomy (LT) approach and 175 (53.4%) were performed laparoscopically (LS). All data were collected by medical specialists at the pre-operative examination prior to surgery, during surgery and three times postoperatively (during hospital stay, at 6-week follow-up and 6 months following surgery). Another analysis considered a total of 206 women who underwent laparoscopic hysterectomy. The subjects were divided according to BMI into 120 very obese women (BMI ≥35 and <40 kg/m2) and 86 severely obese women (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2).

The total number of composite perioperative complications was significantly lower in the LS group (p=0.006). Composite complications occurred significantly more often in patients in the LT group compared with the LS group in the early (p<0.001) and mid-term (p<0.001) postoperative periods. In the late postoperative period, the total number of composite postoperative complications did not differ significantly between the groups (p<0.396). Among 206 patients who underwent laparoscopic hysterectomy, the number of complications was generally low; the rates of composite perioperative (p=0.393), early (p=0.642), mid-term (p=0.738) and late (p=1) postoperative complications were generally low; and frequency did not differ significantly with BMI.

The LS approach does not increase intra-operative morbidity associated with surgery, and has significantly better outcomes in terms of the postoperative complication rate.