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An Orthotopic Endometrial Cancer Model with Retroperitoneal Lymphadenopathy Made From In Vivo Propagated and Cultured VX2 Cells
Published on: September 12, 2019
Treatment Pathways and Candidate Correlates of Surgical Intervention in Locally Advanced Cervical and Other
Alexandru Orasan1, Nicolae Constantin Balica2, Adrian Mihail Sitaru3
1Doctoral School in Medicine, "Victor Babes" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 300041 Timisoara, Romania.
Abstract:
Background/Objectives: Management of locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) and other gynecological malignancies aims to achieve locoregional control while avoiding morbid surgical salvage. This exploratory, hypothesis-generating study described the treatment pathways of three protocol groups and examined whether clinical, sociodemographic, and treatment-deviation variables are associated with any oncological surgery. Methods: Sixty-nine adult patients with gynecological or urogenital cancers (89.9% cervical carcinoma) treated with platinum-based chemotherapy at a Romanian tertiary center between April 2024 and April 2025 were stratified into INTERLACE-type dose-dense induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy (Group A, n = 27), classic three-weekly neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy (Group B, n = 7), and no induction chemotherapy (Group C, n = 35). Associations with any oncological surgery (upfront, completion, or salvage) were explored by multivariable logistic regression with bootstrap internal validation, Firth penalized regression, and restricted sensitivity analyses. Results: Twenty-five patients (36.2%) underwent surgery (14 upfront, 8 completion, 3 salvage), and none of them were from Group A, whose median follow-up was only 8.6 months and whose allocation was confounded by diagnosis and stage. The model showed an apparent area under the curve of 0.717 (optimism-corrected 0.672), accuracy of 73.9% against a no-information rate of 63.8% (p = 0.049), sensitivity of 0.480, and specificity of 0.886. Urban provenience (OR 0.343, 95% CI 0.113-1.039, p = 0.059), Delta Target Dose (OR 1.109 per Gy, p = 0.076), and number of chemotherapy cycles (OR 1.298 per cycle, p = 0.076) showed non-significant trends whose direction was unchanged in all sensitivity analyses. Conclusions: The absence of surgery after induction chemotherapy is hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory, and the exploratory model is not a clinical prediction tool. Geographic provenience and planning-to-delivery treatment deviation are candidate variables for prospective evaluation in a homogeneous LACC population with standardized radiotherapy parameters and mature oncological endpoints.