Histological grade predicts for recurrence in patients with uterine endometrioid carcinoma without myometrial...

To evaluate clinical outcomes and identify factors predictive for recurrence in patients with 1988 (FIGO) stage IA uterine endometrioid carcinoma.

Patients who underwent hysterectomy for stage IA carcinoma were identified in our database. Fisher's exact and χ(2) tests were used to identify factors that influenced outcome. Survival plots were generated according to Kaplan-Meier product-limit method and the log-rank test was used to determine significance.

A total of 121 patients were identified. Eighty-seven percent (n=105) had tumor FIGO grade 1, 9% (n=11) grade 2, and 4% (n=5) grade 3 tumors. Six patients (5%) experienced recurrence. The 5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS), disease-specific survival (DSS) and overall survival (OS) were 93%, 95%, and 85%, respectively. On univariate analysis, tumor FIGO grade 2/3 was strongly associated with tumor recurrence (p=0.003), DSS (p=0.016), and OS (p=0.023). The 5-year RFS, DSS, and OS were 65.1%, 73.9%, and 63.9% respectively for patients with grade 2 and 3 tumors, which were significantly less than the corresponding rates of 97.5% (p ≤ 0.0001), 98.6% (p=0.001), and 87.7% (p=0.024) for patients with grade 1 tumors.

In this large cohort of patients, RFS, DSS and OS were excellent. Patients with FIGO grade 2/3 tumors had worse outcomes compared to those with grade 1 tumors. Therefore, while most patients with stage IA disease do not need adjuvant treatment after hysterectomy, our results suggest that patients with higher-grade tumors have an increased likelihood for recurrence and they may benefit from counseling regarding adjuvant therapies.