A short course - low dose preoperative irradiation of endometrial carcinoma. Preliminary report

This is a preliminary and comparative report of a randomized prospective study in which 14 unselected women with a proven histological diagnosis of endometrial adenocarcinoma were subjected to a course of external irradiation treatment with total 1,500 rad mid-pelvic dose delivered on five consecutive days followed by total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. Surgery was performed within 1 week after the completion of radiation therapy. At the same time, 15 additional patients with identical histological diagnosis were treated with the conventional external irradiation technique of 5,000 rad delivered in 5 weeks followed by surgery 6 weeks later. The stage indicates no significant differences between these two radiotherapeutic modalities in regard to survival rate, recurrences or complications. The short course-low dose approach markedly reduces the cost and overall treatment time.