Background: The purpose of this study was to determine clinicopathologic variables associated with extrauterine disease, recurrence, and survival in patients with carcinosarcoma (CS) of the uterus.
Methods: Patients believed to have disease confined to the uterine corpus who underwent primary surgical assessment were identified and data retrospectively reviewed.
Results: Occult metastases were found in 38 (61%) of 62 patients. At last follow-up, 31 (50%) had had recurrence, with an extrapelvic component in 43%, and 53% had died. Depth of myometrial invasion and lymph-vascular space invasion (LVSI) were associated with extrauterine disease. Five-year survival for patients with disease confined to the corpus (74%) was significantly greater than for those with more advanced disease (24%, P = 0.0013). Factors associated with recurrence and survival included depth of myometrial invasion, LVSI, adnexal and serosal involvement, positive cytology, and lymph node metastases. Of 24 patients with uterine disease only, 11 received no adjuvant therapy, yet 8 (73%) were free of disease at last follow-up. Neither adjuvant radiotherapy nor chemotherapy was identified as an independent prognostic variable for recurrence or survival.
Conclusions: More than half of patients with CS clinically confined to the uterine corpus harbor occult metastases in a pattern similar to that found with endometrial carcinoma. Survival is significantly diminished for this group. Although the benefit of adjuvant therapy cannot be demonstrated by this study, a number of early stage patients survive without adjuvant therapy. This argues for extending the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics endometrial carcinoma surgical staging system to include CS, and also for conducting prospective trials to examine the benefits of adjuvant therapy for patients with early stage disease.
Copyright 2000 American Cancer Society.