Residual tumor following radiotherapy for locally advanced carcinomas of the uterine cervix. Prognostic significance.
Over a five-year period from 1977 to 1982, 120 patients with locally advanced carcinomas of the uterine cervix were surgically staged by lymphadenectomy and laparotomy. Radiotherapy was then administered according to the pelvic extent of disease, and all patients underwent extrafascial total hysterectomy with adnexectomy at ten weeks after completing radiation therapy. The presence or absence of residual tumor in the hysterectomy specimen appeared to be an important prognostic factor in treatment success or failure. Patients with no residual tumor were found to have an excellent prognosis. Those with residual tumor clear of the resection margins were at risk for distant metastases. Only one survivor was noted in the group of patients in whom the margins of resection were involved with tumor, nearly all of these patients dying from local recurrences. Major operative morbidity in the series was minimal, and consisted of a single ureterovaginal fistula, which required urinary diversion.
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*