Peritoneal fluid cytology and prognosis in patients with endometrial carcinoma

Cytologic examination was performed on peritoneal fluid collected from a total of 235 consecutive patients with endometrial carcinoma who underwent laparotomy as the initial treatment at the Cancer Institute Hospital from 1971-1985. The rate of cases positive for cancer cells in the peritoneal cytologic examination was 18.7% for all stages (44 of 235 cases). In stage I endometrial carcinoma, the 5-year and 10-year cumulative survival rates with positive peritoneal cytologic findings were 91.6 and 90.0%, respectively; those in cases with negative cytologic findings were 90.2 and 90.2%, respectively, with no significant difference. The recurrence rate in the same stage was 12.0% for cytologically positive cases versus 9.5% for negative cases. In stages II and III, no significant difference was noted in the survival rate between nine cases with positive peritoneal cytologic findings without macroscopic peritoneal metastasis and 47 comparable cases with negative cytologic findings. Therefore, in endometrial carcinoma, the presence of malignant cells in peritoneal fluid is not a useful prognostic factor.