Uterine sarcoma. Clinico-pathological characteristics and outcome

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the clinical and histopathological characteristics, with the prognostic factors, treatment outcome, pattern of relapse, and survival analysis of uterine sarcoma patients.

METHODS: All patients with histologically proven uterine sarcoma were identified using the database at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia between January 2000 and December 2012.

RESULTS: A total of 36 patients with uterine sarcoma were reviewed. The median age of all patients was 57 years, and the mean age was 57.72+/-13.17 years. Carcinosarcoma was reported in 21 patients (58%), leiomyosarcoma in 7 (19%), undifferentiated endometrial sarcoma in 6 (17%), and rhabdomyosarcoma in 2 (6%). Approximately half of the patients were stages III and IV (28% and 25%), while 15 patients (41%) were stage I; only 2 patients (6%) were stage II. The surgical treatment was hysterectomy and bilateral salpingoophorectomy (H+BSO) plus staging in 18 patients (50%), while in 4 patients (19%), H+BSO plus debulking was performed. Adjuvant chemotherapy was given in 24 (69%) and adjuvant radiotherapy in 5 (14%) cases, At a median follow-up period of 13.5 months, 8 patients (22%) relapsed. The 2-year disease-free survival (DFS) rate was 22% and the 5-year was 14%. In the multivariate analysis, the advanced stages (p=0.015) and lymph vascular invasion (p=0.0001) were associated with poor DFS, while the use of chemotherapy significantly improved the DFS (p=0.027). Conclusions: The poor outcome of high-grade uterine sarcoma patients was identified, and only one third of patients (30%) survived for 2 years. This finding necessitates the need for more aggressive tools to fight this disease.