[Changes in the clinical picture, morphology and therapy of endometrial carcinoma over 3 decades]

In the years 1952 to 1980 724 women were treated at the 2nd Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University of Vienna, for carcinoma of the endometrium. The mean age of the 463 (64%) women operated on rose from 56 to 62 years within three decades; the mean age of the 254 (35%) patients who received primary radiation therapy rose from 68 to 72 years; 7 women (1%) were treated symptomatically only. Looking at constitutional factors an increase of the number of women with manifest diabetes from 4% to 22% was noticed above all. Body weight and mean blood pressure increased slightly although not significantly. Irregular bleeding was the most common symptom, occurring in 90% of all cases and did not show any change in frequency. During the first decade of the period under consideration 86% of the women underwent primary operation, but that percentage decreased to 51% after 1970. Equally distinct was the decrease of 34% to 4% of the vaginal in favor of the abdominal operation. The number of cases with carcinomas with deep myometrial invasion and low differentiation increased. The high significance of these parameters for prognosis is shown by survival curves. The 5-year survival rates of patients primarily operated were about 75%, that of women receiving primarily radiation therapy at about 54%. These results remained approximately the same within the observation period. The increase of complicating factors such as higher age and more frequent incidence of diabetes mellitus accounts apparently for the increase in the number of women receiving primary radiation therapy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)