The vulva is part of the female genitalia and sits at the opening of the vagina. Sometimes benign or cancerous growths can develop on the vulva. When that happens, a patient may need a vulvectomy to surgically remove those growths.

Here, I’ll share common types of vulvectomies, when they’re used for treatment and what you can expect during and after the procedure.    

Reasons for a vulvectomy

Doctors may perform a vulvectomy to treat conditions such as:

• Vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN) or vulvar dysplasia, a precancerous condition where abnormal cells form on the skin of the vulva. VIN is not cancer, but sometimes it can turn into vulvar cancer.
• Vulvar cancer  

Types of vulvectomies

The type of vulvectomy you get will depend on whether the lesion is cancerous, its size and its location.

Your doctor will talk to you about which surgery is right for you.

Simple vulvectomy

A simple vulvectomy is often referred to as a wide local excision. At MD Anderson, we use this procedure to treat precancerous lesions on the vulva. We may also do a simple vulvectomy if you’ve been treated for vulvar cancer and develop a new lesion that we suspect may be cancerous.

During a simple vulvectomy, your doctor will remove the lesion and some of the tissue under the skin. Tumor margin is the healthy tissue bordering the tumor that’s removed during surgery. For a simple vulvectomy, we want to get a tumor margin between 0.5 cm and 1 cm.

Radical partial vulvectomy

A radical partial vulvectomy is used to treat vulvar cancer. During the procedure, the doctor removes the lesion and deeper layers of tissue under the skin. The tumor margin for a radical partial vulvectomy is 2 cm. This margin may be limited due to neighboring structures.

At the time of a vulvectomy, your doctor may also recommend a lymphadenectomy or sentinel lymph node biopsy to remove some of your lymph nodes, depending on where the lesion is and how deep it goes into the vulva.