Surgical pathological staging of endometrial carcinoma and results of treatment

114 women with endometrial carcinoma at clinical stage 1 to 3 were treated with surgery as first line of treatment. Patients were classified as being low or high risk on the basis of the surgical pathological patterns of the tumor. Disease limited to the uterine body, G1-G2 tumors and myometrial invasion of less than 1/3, identified low risk patients which received no adjuvant therapy. All the others were considered high risk and treated with radiation therapy. Patients were retrospectively restaged according to 1988 FIGO guidelines and survival was analyzed. Cox's proportional hazards method was employed to identify independent prognostic factors. Disease free survival (DFS) was 90% for stage 1, 83% for stage 2, and 43% for stage 3 patients. Lymphatic spread was associated to the poorer prognosis. Proportional hazards model showed that tumor grading, myometrial invasion and lymphatic spread were significantly related to the time of relapsing. Low risk patients showed better outcomes despite not having received adjuvant treatment, thus post-operative therapy is not indicated in this subset of patients. Radiation adjuvant therapy for high risk patients did not give satisfactory results. Failures were observed both locally and distantly calling for new adjuvant strategies. Surgical pathological staging of endometrial cancer is currently mandatory. Retroperitoneal lymph node sampling is indicated in patients with high risk pre- (advanced clinical disease, undifferentiated tumors) or intra-operative (deep myometrial invasion, enlarged pelvic nodes) prognostic factors. All prognostic indicators must be obtained from surgery and pathology in order to assess the risk of relapse.