Endometrial cancer: asymptomatic endometrial findings. Characteristics of postmenopausal endometrial cancer

Abstract

Endometrial cancer affects patients at every age, however it occurs more frequently in menopause (> 50) and in postmenopause (> 70). The most frequent symptoms are bleeding and vaginal discharge. When hematometra or pyometra is present the patient may feel pain. In some cases endometrial adenocarcinoma is asymptomatic and the diagnosis is casually made during ultrasound examination or by histological examination of a uterus surgically removed for other indications. In these cases the most frequent findings are polyps and abnormally increased thickness of the endometrial mucosa. In postmenopause polyps and abnormal endometrial thickness are usually limited to a small area and surrounded by atrophic mucosa. Higher incidence rates of endometrial cancer were correlated with polyps and an increased number of serous type tumors were identified in the > 65-year age group. Endometrial carcinoma may be estrogen correlated or non-estrogen associated. Patients in postmenopause are often affected by non-estrogen correlated endometrial carcinoma. According to Kurman and other authors the first type of endometrial adenocarcinoma (estrogen correlated) is characterized by low-grade malignancy. On the contrary, non-estrogen correlated neoplasia is more aggressive. In our case series including 102 women aged > 70 years with endometrial carcinoma we found that survival was correlated with stage and grading - early stages were the most frequent and the grade increased with stage. In fact all the patients with relapses had grade 2 or 3 adenocarcinomas. Thirty-one patients > 70 years (30.69%) had a non-endometrioid type of cancer.