Radiation Therapy in Recurrence of Carcinoma of the Uterine Cervix after Primary Surgery

Kim, Jin Hee; Kim, Ok Bae

Abstract

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate treatment results in terms of the survival and failure patterns subsequent to radiation therapy in recurrent cervical cancer, following primary surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Between January 1990 and December 1999, 27 patients, with recurrent cervical cancer following primary surgery, were subsequently treated with radiation in the Department of Radiation Oncology, at the Keimyung University Dongsan Medical Center. Their median age was 48, ranging from 31 to 70 years old. With regard to the initial FIGO stage on presentation, 20 and 7 patients were stages I and II, respectively. Twenty three patients had squamous cell carcinomas and 4 had adenocarcinomas. The time interval from the primary surgery to the recurrence ranged from 2 to 90 months with a median of 29 months. The recurrent sites were the vaginal cuff alone, the pelvic cavity and combined recurrence in 14, 9 and 4 patients, respectively. Radiation was performed, with external and vaginal intracavitary radiation in 13 patients, external radiation alone in 13 and vaginal intracavitary radiation alone in another one. The median follow-up period was 55 months, ranging from 6 to 128 months.
RESULTS
The five year disease free survival (5y DFS) and five year overall survival (5y OS) rates were 68.2 and 71.9%, respectively. There was a marginal statistically significant difference in the 5y DFS in relation to the recurrent site (5y DFS, 85.7% in vaginal cuff recurrence alone, 53.3% in pelvic cavity recurrence, p=0.09). There was no difference in the survival according to the time interval between the primary surgery and a recurrence. There was only a 7% local failure rate in the patients with a vaginal cuff recurrence. The major failure patterns were local failure in the patients with pelvic cavity recurrence, and distant failure in the patients with a combined recurrence. There were no complications above grade 3 after the radiation therapy.
CONCLUSION
Radiation therapy was safe and effective treatment for a recurrent carcinoma of the uterine cervix following primary surgery, especially the external beam radiation and vaginal intracavitary irradiation achieved the best results in the patients with a vaginal cuff recurrence following primary surgery.