Patterns of care, associations and outcomes of chemotherapy for uterine serous carcinoma: analysis of the National Cancer Database

Abstract

Objective: Evaluate rates of chemotherapy and radiotherapy delivery in the treatment of uterine serous carcinoma, and compare clinical outcomes of treated and untreated patients.

Methods: The National Cancer Database was queried to identify patients diagnosed with uterine serous carcinoma between 2003 and 2011. The impact of chemotherapy on survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Factors predictive of outcome were compared using the Cox proportional hazards model.

Results: A total of 13,752 patients met the study eligibility criteria. Stage I, II, III, and IV disease accounted for 4355 (31.7%), 1023 (7.4%), 3484 (25.3%), and 2451 (17.8%) of the study population, respectively. 2439 (17.7%) women had unknown stage. Chemotherapy was administered in 4290 (35.4%) patients, radiotherapy to 1673 (12.2%), adjuvant chemo-radiation to 2915 (21.2%), and 4874 (35.4%) of women did not receive adjuvant therapy during the study period. Utilization of chemotherapy became more frequent over time. Over the entire study period, after adjusting for age, period of diagnosis, race, facility location, facility type, insurance provider, socioeconomic status, comorbidity index, lymph node dissection, treatment modality, and stage, there was an association between treatment modality and survival, with the lowest hazard ratio in patients that received chemo-radiation. After adjusting for the same factors in women with stages I and II, chemo-radiation was associated with improved survival compared to patients that received no treatment. Radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone was not associated with improved survival.

Conclusion: Utilization of chemotherapy is increased in this population over the study period from 2003-2012 and more importantly that survival, particularly in advanced stage patients, is improving.

Keywords: Endometrial cancer; Uterine serous carcinoma.