An umbilical metastasis after laparoscopy for squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix

Laparoscopic surgical techniques are being used with increasing frequency in patients with gynecologic malignancies. Abdominal wall metastases to trochar sites have been described after treatment for ovarian cancer and other adenocarcinomas but are very rare in patients with squamous cell carcinomas. We present a case of metastasis to a laparoscopic trochar site in a patient with squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix, While this may be an unusual event, there is some concern that laparoscopy could disseminate otherwise isolated pelvic disease. (C) 1997 Academic Press.