Current research directions for locally advanced cervix cancer

Chemoradiotherapy with either weekly doses of cisplatin or the combination of 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin has become the standard of therapy for patients with locally advanced cervix cancer. Recently reported studies that are directed at improvements in radiation treatment planning, improved tissue oxygenation, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy are likely to lead to improvements in therapy. Nonsurgical preoperative staging with positron emission tomography and sentinel lymph node evaluation could result in effective surgical staging, or even nonsurgical staging, more accurate radiation treatment planning, and improved local and systemic control with a reduction in short-term and long-term morbidity in the treatment of locally advanced cervix cancer. Well-designed, randomized, prospective clinical trials are needed for a more thorough evaluation of these preliminary findings and to set research directions for the next several years.