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Evidence summaries

Treatment of Uterine Cancer

Radiotherapy is the most effective treatment for uterine cancer. Level of evidence: "A"

A systematic review 1 including 55 studies with a total of 13 597 subjects was abstracted in DARE. Endometrial cancer is radiosensitive and most patients can be cured by radiotherapy alone. For stage I cancers better results are obtained when surgery is combined with radiotherapy. Vaginal postoperative radiotherapy reduces the proportion of patients who develop vaginal metastases from 7 to 20% to < 1%, but it may not be necessary for those whose risk of metastasis is small. Radiotherapy improves outcomes with poorly differentiated disease and is effective for palliation and sometimes cure in patients with advanced cancer.

Comment: The quality of evidence is upgraded due to consistent findings, although most of the data comes from retrospective trials.

References

  • The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care. Uterine cancer (corpus uteri). Acta Oncologica 1996;2(suppl 7):pp. 81-85. [DARE]

Primary/Secondary Keywords