Endometrial cancer patients and tibolone: a matched case-control study

To evaluate whether tibolone had adverse effects on the prognosis of endometrial cancer patients.

In this retrospective matched case-control study, out of 396 patients with endometrial cancer from January 1997 to December 2002, 68 patients who underwent complete surgical staging were identified as tibolone users (cases). For each case, one control as tibolone non-user was matched for stage and grade of disease, in this order of priority (ratio users: non-users, 1:1).

There were no significant differences in age (p = 0.11), stage (p = 1.00), grade (p = 0.96) and treatment modality (p = 0.55) between two arms. The mean duration of follow-up for tibolone users and tibolone non-users is 48.0 months and 54.4 months, respectively (p = 0.12). In tibolone users, a total of four patients recurred and two out of four patients died of disease. In tibolone non-users, there were three recurrences and all of three patients died of disease. There were no significant differences in disease free survival (p = 0.52) and overall survival (p = 0.61) between two arms. And there was no significant difference in disease free survival according to the duration of tibolone use (p = 0.14).

There was no evidence that tibolone had adverse effects on the disease free survival and overall survival of endometrial cancer patients. So, tibolone could be used in these patients.