Prognostic factors in stages II/III/IV and stages III/IV endometrioid and serous adenocarcinoma of the endometrium

Aims: To explore and to compare the outcome of patients diagnosed with stage II/III/IV and stage III/IV endometrioid adenocarcinoma (EAC) with their serous carcinoma (USC) counterparts. Materials and methods: A total of 107 patients (73 EAC and 34 USC) were evaluated. For statistical analysis, the following baseline variables were considered for their prognostic value: the patient's age at presentation, the tumor size, the depth of myometrial invasion (MI), the lympho-vascular involvement (LVI) and the USC and the EAC subtypes (considered as binary variables). Disease free survival (DFS), death of disease (DOD) and overall survival (OS) were assessed using univariate and multiple Cox proportional hazards models. Results: In univariate analysis, USC tends to recur more frequently than EAC ( p = 0.004), a finding that disappeared in multivariate analysis. Furthermore, tumor histology had no significance in predicting the tumor outcomes. Among all of the prognostic factors and after adjusting for the aforementioned variables, MI ≥50% was the only independent factor in predicting DOD in stages II/III/IV ( p = 0.009) and in stages III/IV ( p = 0.004). MI was also an independent predictive factor for OS ( p = 0.02) and early recurrences in stages III/IV. LVI was the only independent factor in predicting recurrences ( p = 0.004) in stages II/III/IV but not in stages III/IV. Conclusion: Based on our study, tumor histology was not a significant factor in predicting disease outcome in stages II/III/IV and II/IV. Despite our limited sample size, we believe that our findings provide meaningful insights into the clinical study of endometrial cancer patients which in turn warrants further investigation.