Eugen Bogdan Aburel, a pioneer of fertility sparing surgery

Eugen Bogdan Aburel was pioneer of the fertility sparing surgery in early cervical cancer in young women desiring to preserve their childbearing potential. He graduated in Romania but started specializing in obstetrics and gynecology in Paris, where he had the chance to work with the most prominent professors of the time and do research at Sorbonne, the most famous French higher education institution. Most of his discoveries date from the time he spent in Paris hospitals, proving that a good medical school can generate remarkable physicians. The fertility sparing surgery he created after returning to Romania did not have the same chance to be known and spread to the international medical world because of the Cold War isolation, Romania belonging to the Eastern Communist bloc. However, his pioneering work in this field of surgery is fully recognized today.

Abdominal radical trachelectomy during pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature

BACKGROUND

Lack of large trials or randomized studies characterize any type of treatment for cervical cancer during pregnancy experimental.

OBJECTIVE

To accumulate the existing evidence on abdominal radical trachelectomy (ART) during pregnancy.

SEARCH STRATEGY

Medline, Scopus and Google Scholar databases were thoroughly searched up to September 2018 for relevant studies in this field using the terms "Radical Trachelectomy", "Pregnancy", "Cervical cancer", "fertility sparring".

SELECTION CRITERIA

Observational studies and case reports which addressed cases of pregnant women who underwent ART for cervical cancer during pregnancy were included.

MAIN RESULTS

A total of ten studies which recruited 19 patients were finally included. At the time of ART, the gestational age of patients ranged from 7th to 22th weeks. Mean operative time of ART was 351.8 min while mean blood loss was 1,040.35 ml and 5 patients (50%) received blood transfusion. Fetal loss rate was 21.1% (n = 4) and from the completed deliveries 7 (46,66%) were preterm. Postoperative maternal related complication rate was 23.1% (n = 3/13). The mean follow-up was 16.89 months (SD 12.69), whereas all cases were free of disease without evidence of recurrence during their follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

According to the existing evidence, ART may be a tolerable option for pregnant women with early-stage cervical cancer with acceptable oncological and obstetrical outcomes. Future multicenter randomized trials are of particular importance to elucidate the optimal treatment option.