[Combined treatment and prognostic factors for stage III and IV endometrial carcinoma]

To evaluate prognostic factors and treatment of patients with advanced stage endometrial cancer.

One hundred and eighteen patients with advanced stage endometrial cancer were treated in our hospital between January 1996 and December 2006. The treatment and prognosis were retrospectively analyzed. The mean follow-up time was 26 months.

During the follow-up, 33 cases (28.0%) died and 25 patients (21.2%) had disease progression. The 3-year overall survival for patients with stage III and stage IV was 78.3% and 39.4%, and for endometrioid and nonendometrioid endometrial carcinoma was 69.3% and 42.0%, respectively. Four patients with positive cytology only were followed closely after surgery and were free of disease up to the report time. Patients with late stages, deep myometrial invasion, nonendometrioid endometrial cancer, poor differentiation, without lymphadenectomy and without radiochemotherapy after surgery were associated with a worse prognosis by univariate analysis (P < 0.05), while in a multivariate analysis only late stages and deep myometrial invasion were associated with a poor prognosis (P < 0.05). The patients who received lymphadenectomy and whose residual disease after the surgery was less than 1 cm had better prognoses than those otherwise (P < 0.05). The patients who received postoperative radiochemotherapy had better prognoses than those who did not (P < 0.05).

Pathological stage and myometrial invasion are independent prognostic factors for late stage endometrial cancer. Satisfactory cytoreduction surgery and lymphadenectomy, followed by postoperative radiochemotherapy, except for stage IIIa patients with positive cytology only, are recommended in order to improve prognosis.