Objectives Institutional quality control measures, such as monthly quality assessment meetings and stricter patient selection criteria for operation method, have been implemented since 2014 to better monitor cancer patient management. In this study, we evaluated effects of such monitoring on the clinical outcomes of cervical cancer patients.

Methods Medical records of cervical cancer patients who received operation in our institution from January 2007 to December 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Cases were divided into 2 period groups (group 1, 2007–2013, and group 2, 2014–2018), based on the date of operation. Between the two groups, clinical outcomes, including clinicopathologic variables, surgical methods, operative details, adjuvant treatments, 3-year recurrence rates and disease-free survivals (DFS) were compared.

Results A total of 331 cervical cancer patients were included in the study analysis, 224 patients in group 1 and 107 in group 2. Overall, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) was more frequently performed in group 2 (56.3% vs. 69.2%, p=0.025), especially in earlier stages (stage IA, 69.0% vs. 100.0%; stage IB1, 52.9% vs. 67.3%). However, the mean tumor size of stage IB cervical cancer cases treated by MIS was significantly smaller in group 2 (23.6 vs. 17.7 mm, p=0.019). In addition, adjuvant treatment was less frequently performed in group 2, especially in stage IB1 (52.9% vs 32.7%, p=0.015). There was a trend of decreased 3-year recurrence rates (8.5% in group 1 vs. 4.7% in group 2, p=0.211).

Conclusions Institutional quality control monitoring positively affected clinical outcomes of cervical cancer patients.