[Effects of chemotherapy in recurrent endometrial carcinoma]

To explore the effects of chemotherapy in recurrent endometrial carcinoma.

A retrospective study was carried out on the clinical data of 20 cases of recurrent endometrial carcinoma hospitalized from May. 1992 to Jun. 2002.

The recurrence rate of these 20 cases was 11.0%. The recurrence occurred (17 +/- 10) months after the first therapy. Eleven of the 20 patients (55.0%) had accepted chemotherapy with (6 +/- 4) courses and were followed up for (17 +/- 16) months after the second therapy. Fifteen cases (75.0%) died of cancer, 4 cases survived with tumor, and only 1 case (5.0%) was tumor-free. Univariate model revealed that chemotherapy and number of chemotherapy course were related with the prognosis (P = 0.0146, P = 0.0353). Radiotherapy affected the prognosis too (P = 0.0414). But pathologic subtype, stage, tumor cell differentiation, age, recurrent time, surgery, chemotherapy scheme, drug infusion way , and endocrine therapy had no relation with the prognosis (P = 0.5517, 0.5763, 0.1879, 0.880, 0.453, 0.0672, 0.0795, 0.5956, and 0.2035). Multivariate model revealed that chemotherapy had influence on the prognosis (beta = -1.349, OR = 0.259, P = 0.026).

Combined treatment raises the survival of the recurrent endometrial carcinoma patients, in which chemotherapy plays a leading role and influences the prognosis remarkably.