Adjuvant sequential chemo and radiotherapy improves the oncological outcome in high risk endometrial cancer

OBJECTIVE Evaluation of the impact of sequential chemoradiotherapy in high risk endometrial cancer (EC). METHODS Two hundred fifty-four women with stage IB grade 3, II and III EC (2009 FIGO staging), were included in this retrospective study. RESULTS Stage I, II, and III was 24%, 28.7%, and 47.3%, respectively. Grade 3 tumor was 53.2% and 71.3% had deep myometrial invasion. One hundred sixty-five women (65%) underwent pelvic (+/- aortic) lymphadenectomy and 58 (22.8%) had nodal metastases. Ninety-eight women (38.6%) underwent radiotherapy, 59 (23.2%) chemotherapy, 42 (16.5%) sequential chemoradiotherapy, and 55 (21.7%) were only observed. After a median follow-up of 101 months, 78 women (30.7%) relapsed and 91 women (35.8%) died. Sequential chemoradiotherapy improved survival rates in women who did not undergo nodal evaluation (disease-free survival [DFS], p=0.040; overall survival [OS], p=0.024) or pelvic (+/- aortic) lymphadenectomy (DFS, p=0.008; OS, p=0.021). Sequential chemoradiotherapy improved both DFS (p=0.015) and OS (p=0.014) in stage III, while only a trend was found for DFS (p=0.210) and OS (p=0.102) in stage I-II EC. In the multivariate analysis, only age (≤ 65 years) and sequential chemoradiotherapy were statistically related to the prognosis. CONCLUSION Sequential chemoradiotherapy improves survival rates in high risk EC compared with chemotherapy or radiotherapy alone, in particular in stage III.