Outcomes for Cervical Cancer Patients Treated With Radiation in High-Volume and Low-Volume Hospitals

To investigate the effects of different hospital patient loads on the standard of care and treatment outcomes of patients with cervical cancer treated primarily with radiation therapy and to identify factors that may contribute to survival differences among hospitals.

We used the Taiwan Cancer Registry database to extract data on a total of 2582 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage IB to IVA patients with uterine cervical cancer diagnosed from 2007 to 2013 who underwent primarily curative radiation therapy (with or without chemotherapy). We explored associations among hospital patient loads, clinical parameters, the type of care given, and survival.

Patients who received treatment at hospitals with small and medium patient loads (≤5 cases annually) were older and had more advanced-stage disease than other patients. Positive associations were evident between the use of chemotherapy and brachytherapy and hospital patient load. Patients treated at hospitals with large patient loads (>5 cases annually) experienced better overall survival than those treated at hospitals with small or medium patient loads (P < .001). Stepwise addition of variables to multivariable analyses indicated that greater use of chemotherapy and brachytherapy were major contributors to the better survival of patients treated at hospitals with large patient loads. However, larger hospital patient load per se (>5 vs ≤5 cases annually) was also independently prognostic for better survival of patients with bulky tumors or advanced-stage disease.

We found that the inferior survival rate of patients with cervical cancer treated at hospitals with smaller patient loads was attributable not only to a lower standard of care in such hospitals but also to the smaller patient load. Our findings indicate how treatment should be improved in hospitals with small and medium patient loads.