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Lack of improvement in survival rates for women under 50 with endometrial cancer, 2000–2011

  • Original Article – Cancer Research
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To assess how first course of treatment affects cancer-specific survival in women diagnosed with endometrial cancer younger than 50 years old.

Methods

Public-use data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program were used. The study included 82,721 women diagnosed with primary, invasive endometrial cancer between 2000 and 2011. We assessed type of treatment using Cox’s proportional hazards models to determine survival disparity by age and stage.

Results

Cancer-specific survival significantly improved for those aged ≥50 years with late stage, but did not improve for those <50. First course of treatment significantly affected cancer-specific survival for endometrial cancer patients. Regardless of age, survival was greatly improved for late-stage patients who received a combination of surgery and radiation [hazard ratio (HR) 0.62 [95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.47–0.78] and 0.64 (95 % CI 0.59–0.68)] compared to those who received total hysterectomy with removal of ovaries and tubes. However, the proportion of patients who received combination therapy decreased over time. The magnitude of decrease was larger in patients <50 than in those aged ≥50. Overall, about 24–57 % of the difference in cancer-specific survival over time in patients aged <50 was explained by their initial treatment.

Conclusions

Improvement in cancer-specific survival was only seen in older women with late-stage diagnosis. Despite improvements in diagnoses and treatments, the difference in age-specific survival indicates that more should be done to understand why these rates are not improving for those younger than 50 years old.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the assistance of Sarah Toombs Smith, Ph.D., Science Editor at UTMB. Dr. Toombs Smith received no compensation for this effort other than her salary at UTMB.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX, 77555-0587, USA

    Ana M. Rodriguez

  2. Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Kathleen M. Schmeler

  3. Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX, 77555-1148, USA

    Yong-Fang Kuo

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  1. Ana M. Rodriguez
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  2. Kathleen M. Schmeler
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Correspondence to Ana M. Rodriguez.

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Conflict of interest

Drs. Ana Rodriguez and Kathleen Schmeler received grant funding from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), RP101207. The funder had no role in the development of this article (i.e., in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication). Dr. Yong-Fang Kuo declares no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with animals or human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was not obtained because this article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Rodriguez, A.M., Schmeler, K.M. & Kuo, YF. Lack of improvement in survival rates for women under 50 with endometrial cancer, 2000–2011. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 142, 783–793 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-015-2092-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-015-2092-1

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