Background: Data from the literature show that the incidence of pelvic recurrences in poor prognosis endometrial carcinoma is significantly reduced by combined surgery and radiotherapy compared to surgery alone.
Methods: In this paper we analyze the results of the combined treatment surgery plus adjuvant Irradiation in patients with endometrial carcinoma with regard to survival, site of progression, and toxicity. The surgical treatment consisted of total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. Pelvic and para-aortic node dissection was performed.
Results: The overall 5-year survival was 88%. Three patients had local failure. Ten patients with local control of disease had distant metastases and 2 had local and distant recurrences.
Conclusions: Our experience confirms the data of the literature. Postoperative irradiation is a safe and well tolerated treatment which can achieve good local control in high-risk stage I endometrial carcinoma. The control of distant metastases remains an open issue.