Postoperative staging of vulvar carcinoma: a retrospective study

The clinical staging of malignant disease is necessary before initiating nonsurgical therapy. Unfortunately, such staging does not help answer critical questions about the course and natural history of the cancerous process. Answers to these questions are crucial to the planning of future therapeutic programs. A postoperative staging system, amenable to computer analysis, that can be retrospectively applied to a large series of invasive squamous cell carcinomas of the vulva is presented. A review of the experience of a large oncologic service at the University of Buenos Aires, which used this new classification system, shows the system's applicability. Such a system could, in time, provide answers to many questions concerning invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva.