Long term complications after radical hysterectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the incidence of long-term complications in stage IB and IIA cervical cancer patients undergoing radical hysterectomy with bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A retrospective review on 290 patients who were treated with primary type III radical hysterectomy with bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy between January 1, 1997 and December 31, 2005. Long-term complications were classified in two categories, voiding dysfunction and complication from lymphadenectomy such as lymphocyst and lymphedema. RESULTS: Forty-two patients (14.5%) required urethral catheterization more than four weeks. Only four patients (1.4%) were diagnosed as neurogenic bladder and required permanent self-catheterization. Two hundred forty eight patients (85.5%) returned to normal voiding within 1 month postoperatively. The incidence of lymphocyst was 9.3%; however, almost of them were asymptomatic and resolved spontaneously within a few months. Only four patients (1.4%) had complicated lymphocyst and required hospitalization with intravenous antibiotic and drainage procedure. Six patients (2.1%) were diagnosed as lymphedema after exclusion of deep vein thrombosis and recurrent cervical carcinoma. Pelvic lymph node metastasis and postoperative adjuvant radiation were not significant risk factors for lymphocyst and lymphedema. CONCLUSION: Radical hysterectomy with lymphadenectomy is the treatment of choice in stage IB and IIA cervical cancer with excellent survival rate. However there are long-term complications such as voiding dysfunction, lymphocyst, and lymphedema. Although these complications are not life threatening, they can affect the quality of life.

Endometrial adenocarcinoma in young Thai women.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinicopathological characteristics and survival analysis in endometrial adenocarcinoma women younger than the age of 40 years compare to older women. METHODS: Medical records of 423 endometrial adenocarcinoma patients who received primary surgical treatment at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital during 1996-2005 were reviewed. The patients were divided into two groups; 40 years of age or younger (group A, 42 patients) and older than 40 years (group B, 381 patients). RESULTS: Up to 10% (42/423) of endometrial adenocarcinoma patients were younger than the age of 40 years. The higher incidence of nulliparous and obesity (BMI > 30 kg/m2) was significantly demonstrated in group A (81%/34.1% and 52.4%/25.2%, respectively). However, obesity was an only independent factor in multivariate analysis. No significant difference in surgical stage distribution and the other pathologic characteristics was demonstrated between both groups. However, poor histologic grade (grade 3) and deep myometrial invasion (myometrial invasion more than 50%) tended to be found more frequent in the patients older than the age of 40 years, although there was no statistical significance (16% versus 4.7% and 31% versus 14.3%, respectively). Moreover, synchronous ovarian cancer seemed to be higher in young patients (7.1% and 2.9%, p > .05). Median time to follow was 63 months (range 0-145 months). Five years disease free survival and 5 years overall survival were 87.3% and 92.4% in group A versus 83.8% and 88.0% in group B without statistical significance between both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Obesity was the only independent factor associated with endometrial adenocarcinoma in young patients. Distribution of the surgical stage and the other pathologic characteristics were similar between both groups without survival benefit in young patients.

Lack of prognostic significance of HER-2/neu in early epithelial ovarian cancer.

A total of 74 patients with apparent early stage epithelial ovarian cancer who underwent exploratory laparotomy at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital or other hospitals and were referred for further treatment, were evaluated. Formalin fixed paraffin-embedded ovarian tissue specimens were collected and immuno-stained with HER-2/neu antibodies for comparison with clinicopathologic data after median follow up of 46 months (range 3 - 83 months). The prevalence of HER-2/neu overexpression in these patients was 10.2%. No significant correlation between HER-2/neu overexpression and clinicopathological parameters (stage, ascites, capsular rupture, capsular adherence, histological subtype and histological grade) was found. Disease free survival and overall survival did not statistically differ between those with lesions positive or negative for HER-2/neu overexpression.

Outcome of recurrent and persistent disease of malignant ovarian germ cell tumor: a retrospective analysis at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital.

Malignant ovarian germ cell tumor has one of the most successful treatment outcomes in gynecological malignancy. More than 80% of the patients can be cured from this rare type of tumor However, patients with recurrent and persistent disease after primary treatment are still the problem of management. The present study has reviewed the treatment outcome of this cancer in King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital during the 12 years periodfrom 1993 to 2004. The overall cases of malignant ovarian germ cell tumor were 71 cases, 8 cases had recurrent disease after primary treatment and all cases received platinum-based chemotherapy for the salvage treatment. All patients in this group received long-term survival with median survival time of 87 months. In patients with persistent disease, 10 cases that resisted to first line adjuvant chemotherapy. Cisplatin and Etoposide regimen was applied as second line treatment, but none of these patients received long term response. The survival outcomes in these 2 groups are significantly different. The overall survival from the treatment of malignant ovarian germ cell tumor in King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital was 85.1%. In conclusion, the outcome of treatment in patients with recurrent disease after non-platinum chemotherapy is excellent. Salvage therapy in this group should contain platinum-based regimen. Patients whose disease persisted after platinum-containing regimen had a poor survival outcome.