Clinico-Pathological Characteristics, Management, and Prognostic Factors of Patients with Uterine Carcinosarcoma: a...

Uterine carcinosarcoma is a rare, highly aggressive, rapidly progressing neoplasm associated with a poor prognosis. It comprises 1-5% of all uterine malignancies but accounts for 16.4% of all deaths caused by uterine malignancies. There is a definite paucity of data available from the Indian subcontinent. Hence, we retrospectively conducted this study to analyze the clinical and pathological characteristics and outcomes of women with uterine carcinosarcoma in the past 10 years managed at the tertiary care center. This is a retrospective study of women with histologically proven uterine carcinosarcoma treated at a tertiary cancer center in South India between August 2009 and April 2019. Inpatient and outpatient records were reviewed; clinicopathological data were collected; and follow-up and survival data were ascertained. Over a period of 10 years, 20 patients were diagnosed with uterine carcinosarcoma. The majority of patients were postmenopausal (80%). Post-menopausal bleeding was the main presenting complaint in about 80% of patients. More than two-thirds of patients presented in the early stage (stage I, 55%; stage II, 20%). All patients underwent staging laparotomy. Patients with good performance status (85%) received adjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy and chemotherapy. At a median follow-up of 40 months, 7 (35%) patients were alive, out of which 6 are disease-free and 1 had a recurrence. The event-free survival at a median follow-up of 40 months was 40% and the overall survival was 48.5%. The outcome did not significantly differ based on the age, tumor histology (heterologous versus homologous), stage, and depth of myometrial invasion. Uterine carcinosarcoma, though rare, needs to be recognized as a distinct entity, and treated aggressively. Surgery is the cornerstone of therapy. Adjuvant concurrent chemoradiation and chemotherapy improve local control and may delay recurrence, but have shown little survival advantage. The optimal adjuvant treatment for this uncommon disease is yet to be established, highlighting the need for larger multicentric studies on this tumor.