Reassessment of myometrial invasion in endometrial carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
To assess different methods of measuring the depth of myometrial invasion in endometrial carcinoma as a prognostic factor.


METHODS
Eighty-eight cases of stage I or II endometrial carcinoma treated initially by hysterectomy between 1979-1989 were reviewed histologically. Three methods of measuring myometrial invasion were evaluated: 1) percentage of invaded tumor thickness to whole thickness of myometrium, 2) percentage of whole tumor thickness to total thickness of tumor and myometrium, and 3) distance from the tumor-myometrial junction to the uterine serosa. We evaluated the effect of several factors on prognosis by multivariate analysis using Cox regression models.


RESULTS
Myometrial invasion determined by these three measurement methods was associated significantly with survival in a univariate analysis. When myometrial invasion assessed by each method and other prognostic factors were entered into a multivariate model, the distance from the tumor-myometrial junction to the uterine serosa, lymph-vascular space invasion, and cervical stromal involvement were identified as independently significant prognostic factors.


CONCLUSIONS
This method of evaluating myometrial invasion by measuring the distance from the tumor-myometrial junction to the uterine serosa was most useful as a correlate with survival.
Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
T
T
Kaku
N
N
Tsuruchi
N
N
Tsukamoto
T
T
Hirakawa
T
T
Kamura
H
H
Nakano
D002277:Carcinoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D016889:Endometrial Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009215:Myometrium / Q000473:pathology*; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D011379:Prognosis; D016019:Survival Analysis