Does adjuvant chemotherapy improve the prognosis of cervical carcinoma with lymph-node metastasis? A long-term follow-up.

OBJECTIVE: to verify the efficacy of adjuvant therapy in the prevention of neoplastic recurrence in patients at high risk for lymph-node involvement on surgical examination.

METHODS: 72 patients, suffering from squamous cell cervical carcinoma Stage IB-IIB (FIGO) who underwent radical hysterectomy with lymph-node involvement confirmed at the final histological examination, were enrolled. All the patients were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy (AC), which included cisplatin, bleomycin and vinblastine, and were followed for a minimum period of six years. The results were compared with those obtained with a historical group of 78 patients, with comparable age, stage and lymph-node involvement, on whom only radical surgery (RS) was performed.

RESULTS: the average total survival rate of the two groups (RS + AC vs RS) at five years was 63.9% and 55.1%, respectively (chi2 = 1.191; p = NS). The disease-free interval was 55.6% vs 46.2% (chi2 = 1.324; p = NS). The best results were obtained in cases where the common iliac lymph-nodes were affected, with the highest survival rate of 16.9% in the RS+AC group, out of a total of 25 cases.

CONCLUSIONS: adoption of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients at high risk for lymph-node positivity did not produce statistically significant results in terms of overall and disease-free survival; however, a small number of these patients, approximately 9%, could receive benefit from the treatment.