Vulvar Cancer Treatment

At MD Anderson, a team of nationally known experts concentrates on giving you the most advanced treatments for vulvar cancer. Maintaining your quality of life is always a priority. For this reason, we focus on therapies that target cancer with the most advanced methods while minimizing side effects.

Our physicians are at the forefront of pioneering approaches, including sentinel node biopsy procedures. Research done here has helped the standard care for vulvar cancer evolve into surgery combined with other therapies, including chemotherapy and radiation. Radiation treatment is more precise with the use of advanced delivery techniques and the use of MRI guidance, which can minimize the impact on healthy tissue.

MD Anderson treats more women each year with this complex cancer than most oncologists in the nation. This gives us a level of experience and expertise that may lead to a higher chance of successful treatment in many cases.

And we are constantly researching newer, safer, more advanced vulvar cancer treatments. This translates to a number of clinical trials.

If you are diagnosed with vulvar cancer, your doctor will discuss the best options to treat it. This depends on several factors, including:

• The type and stage of the cancer
• Your overall health
• Your age
• Your preferences

Your treatment for vulvar cancer at MD Anderson will be customized to your needs. One or more of the following therapies may be recommended to treat the cancer or help relieve symptoms.

Surgery

Vulvar cancer treatment usually includes surgery. Like all surgeries, vulvar cancer surgery is most successful when done by a specialist with a great deal of experience in the procedure.

MD Anderson surgeons are among the most skilled and recognized in the world. They perform a large number of surgeries for vulvar cancer each year, using the least-invasive and most-advanced techniques.

The main types of surgery for vulvar cancer include the following:

Laser surgery: Lasers may be used to treat precancerous changes. Abnormal cells are burned off with a laser beam. Lasers are not used for invasive vulvar cancer.

Wide local excision or simple vulvectomy: These procedures may be used to treat precancerous lesions or small non-invasive cancer lesions.

Radical partial vulvectomy: The purpose of this surgery is to remove any invasive cancer on the vulva.

Pelvic exenteration: In this complex surgery, the vulva and lymph nodes in the pelvis are removed. Depending on how far the cancer has spread, the lower colon, rectum, bladder, uterus, cervix and/or vagina may be removed.

• If the bladder is removed, a piece of intestine may be used to make a new bladder. Then urine may be drained through a catheter (tube) into a urostomy, which is a small opening on the abdomen, or into a small plastic bag worn on the outside of the body.
• If the rectum and part of the colon are removed, you may have a colostomy, which is an opening on the abdomen that allows solid waste (stool) to pass into a small bag worn on the outside of the body. Sometimes the colon may be reconnected so that a colostomy is not needed.

To learn more about the surgery, watch Total Pelvic Exenteration: What You Need to Know.

Full inguinal lymph node dissection: The surgeon removes all of the lymph nodes on one or both sides of the groin area. Lymphedema, which is caused by decreased fluid drainage, may be a side effect of this surgery.

Sentinel inguinal lymph node biopsy: The surgeon only removes the first lymph nodes the cancer might have spread to on one or both sides in the groin area. Lymphedema may be a side effect of this surgery, but this technique may limit the severity of the condition. Learn more about lymphedema.

Topical therapy

This type of treatment may be used in precancerous vulvar cell changes. Medicine is applied to the growth.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells, control their growth or relieve disease-related symptoms. Chemotherapy may involve a single drug or a combination of two or more drugs, depending on the type of cancer and how fast it is growing.

Learn more about chemotherapy.

Radiation

Radiation therapy uses powerful, focused beams of energy to kill cancer cells. There are several different radiation therapy techniques. Doctors can use these to accurately target a tumor while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. 

Learn more about radiation therapy.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a type of immunotherapy. They stop the immune system from turning off before cancer is completely eliminated. Patients may receive a single immunotherapy drug or multiple drugs in combination.

Learn more about immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Targeted therapy

Targeted therapy drugs are designed to stop or slow the growth or spread of cancer. This happens on a cellular level. Cancer cells need specific molecules (often in the form of proteins) to survive, multiply and spread. These molecules are usually made by the genes that cause cancer and the cells themselves. Targeted therapies are designed to interfere with, or target, these molecules or the cancer-causing genes that create them.

Learn more about targeted therapy.

Our vulvar cancer clinical trials

Because of its status as one of the world’s premier cancer centers, MD Anderson participates in clinical trials (research studies) of new therapies for vulvar cancer.

Learn more about clinical trials.