Surgical margin status in relation to surgical approach in the management of early-stage cervical Cancer: A Canadian cervical Cancer collaborative (4C) study

•In patients with Stage Ia1-Ib2 cervical cancer, there was no association between surgical approach and margin status.•Close margins (<3 mm) had double the risk of death than negative margins, but not significant when adjusted for confounders.•In the total cohort, minimally invasive radical hysterectomy was associated to worse overall survival.•Therefore surgical margin status may not be the driver of worse survival in minimally invasive radical hysterectomy.