Prognostic value of pelvic lymphadenectomy in surgical treatment of apparent stage I endometrial cancer.
BACKGROUND
The role of pelvic lymphadenectomy in early endometrial carcinoma is still being debated.


METHODS
We retrospectively analyzed a total of 131 patients with FIGO stage I endometrial cancer undergoing surgery without (Group 1) or with (Group 2) pelvic lymphadenectomy. Kaplan-Meier and Cox analyses were used to calculate crude and adjusted survival rates. Moreover, the overlap of pre- and post-surgical staging was analyzed.


RESULTS
Overall survival rate at 5 years was 90.1%. The difference in crude survival rates of the two groups is not statistically significant (p-value= 0.3777, log rank test). Five patients of Group 2 presented positive pelvic nodes. Therefore our results showed a pre-surgical understaging, referring to nodal involvement, in 9.1% of cases (5/55).


CONCLUSIONS
Pelvic lymphadenectomy is a useful procedure for prognostic and staging purposes, but does not improve survival in FIGO stage I endometrial carcinoma.
Ceccaroni
Marcello
M
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine, Bologna, Italy. mceccaroni@libero.it
Savelli
Luca
L
Bovicelli
Alessandro
A
Alboni
Carlo
C
Ceccarini
Michela
M
Farina
Antonio
A
Bovicelli
Luciano
L
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016889:Endometrial Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate