Vulvar cancer in Iran: Retrospective study over 20 years (1998-2018)

We did not have any data about vulvar cancer - as a fourth cause of gynecological cancer in the worldwide - in our country.

Our study is designed to evaluate the frequency, stage and outcome of patients with vulvar cancer.

In this retrospective observational study, we studied patients' records with diagnosis of vulvar cancer who referred to department of gynecology oncology, Emam-Khomeini Hospital (EKH), Tehran, Iran, between January 1998 and December 2018. A total of 106 cases of vulvar cancers were found in the records of outpatient oncology clinic of medical university of Tehran university. Survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier analysis with SPSS version of 24.

Mean age of the 106 patients in the study was 59.2 years. The most site of tumor involvement was major labial (39.1%). Vulvar cancer significantly was more in multiparous (P < 0.001) and menopause patients (P < 0.001). Squamous Cell Carcinoma was the most pathology of vulvar cancer (72.2%). Ninety patients (84.9%) had surgery as a primary treatment and 48 (53.3%) of these patients received adjuvant radiotherapy or chemoradiation after surgery. Mean duration of patient's follow up was 82.4 ± 68.3 month. Five-year survival of our patients in all stages was 71%.

Our findings are located between developed and underdeveloped countries. Our patients are diagnosed nearly in earlier stages of disease and 84.9%t of them had surgery as a primary treatment, so earlier surgery resulted in good survival of patients.