Kim SI, Lee M, Lee S, et al. - Among retrospectively identified patients with FIGO stage IB cervical cancer, researchers assessed survival outcomes in primary laparoscopic radical hysterectomy (LRH) vs open radical hysterectomy (ORH). Participants were cervical cancer patients who received either LRH (n = 343) or ORH (n = 222). They performed Mahalanobis distance-based sample matching for stage, histology, cervical mass size, parametrial invasion, and lymph node metastasis in order to adjust for confounders. After matching, worse progression-free survival was observed in the LRH group vs ORH group; the two groups did not differ significantly in terms of overall survival, incidences of pelvic, retroperitoneal lymph node and abdominal recurrences, nor distant metastasis. Based on the findings, ORH may be the treatment of choice to surgically manage patients with FIGO stage IB cervical cancer. However, the possible applicability of LRH in stage IB1 patients with tumor size ≤ 2 cm was suggested because equivalent progression-free survival was seen with both surgical approaches.