Intratumoral blood flow analysis in endometrial cancer: does it differ among individual tumor characteristics?

To evaluate whether intratumoral blood flow analysis in endometrial cancer provides individual tumor characteristics, 36 patients with endometrial cancer (5 in stage IA, 14 in stage IB, 5 in stage IC, 4 in stage II, and 8 in stage III) underwent transvaginal color and pulsed Doppler ultrasound before surgery. Histologically, there were 18 patients with well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, 8 with moderate differentiated adenocarcinoma, 4 with poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, 4 with adenoacanthoma, and 2 with carcinosarcoma. Intratumoral blood flow was recorded, and peak systolic velocity (PSV) and resistance index (RI) were calculated. Endometrial thickness (ET) was also measured. There were no significant differences among PSV and RI values for each stage. There were also no significant differences among PSV and RI values for each histological diagnosis. ET in stages IA, IB, and II was significantly thinner than that in stage III (P < 0.05). Moreover, ET in stage IA was significantly thinner than that in stage IC (P < 0.05). There were significant differences in ET for some histological diagnoses. These results suggest that intratumoral blood flow analysis in endometrial cancer could not predict the tumor staging and histological diagnosis. However, in view of the small number of patients, these observations must be considered preliminary.