Early uterine body carcinoma: has post-operative vaginal irradiation any value?

A retrospective study of 1703 Stage 1A and 1B adenocarcinomas of the uterine body, treated with and without post-hysterectomy vaginal irradiation in Birmingham between 1960 and 1974 inclusive, showed a vaginal failure rate of 3.76%. Vaginal irradiation eliminated recurrence in non-invasive tumours, and reduced the incidence in the invasive ones. Treatment had no influence on the incidence of pelvic recurrence, metastatic disease or the survival rate of any histological type of tumour, invasive or non-invasive. Treatment of late recurrence reduced the final vaginal failure rate to 0.83%. Prognosis depended on the size of uterine cavity, the histological grade and invasive character of the tumour, and was unrelated to post-operative local treatment.