External Beam Radiotherapy Boosted With High Dose Rate Brachytherapy in Completely Resected Uterine Sarcomas. Is This a Treatment Option?

ABSTRACT

Uterine sarcoma (US) is a relative rare tumor, whichaccounts for only about 3-5% of all uterine cancers.Aggressive cytoreductive surgery at the time of the initialdiagnosis with maximum tumor debulking may lead toa prolonged survival or cure. OBJECTIVE: to identifyand review the role of adjuvante external beam radiationtherapy (EBRT) associated with high dose ratebrachytherapy (HDRB) in the management of patientspresenting US with complete resection. MATERIAL ANDMETHODS: this study is a retrospective analysis of 23patients with US treated from 10/92 to 03/03, withsurgery, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) andhigh dose rate brachytherapy (HDRB). The inclusioncriteria for study participation included: histologicallyproven and graded US, completely resection of tumor,Karnofsky status 60–100, absence of significant infection,and recovery from recent surgery. RESULTS: The medianage of patients was 62 years (range 39-84); ten-yearactuarial disease-free and overall survivals were 42.2%and 63.4%, respectively. On univariate analysis,predictive factors for disease-free survival (DFS) wereage at initial presentation (p=0.0268), parity (p= 0.0441),tumor grade (p= 0.0095), cervical or vaginal invasion(p=0.0014) and node dissection at time of surgery (p=0.0471). On multivariate analysis, the only predictivefactor was cervical or vaginal invasion (p= 0.048), hazardratio of 4.7. CONCLUSION: it is quite likely that neitherradiotherapy nor chemotherapy alone will appreciablyimprove survival in US. If radiation therapy providesbetter locoregional tumor control, hematogenousmetastases will assume an even greater proportion oftreatment failures. Unfortunately, our small andheterogeneous group analyzed precludes any definitiveconclusions about the impact of HDRB associated to EBRTradiation therapy on recurrence or survival.