Journal of the European Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy

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Clinicopathologic Study in Uterine Cancer

I. Vandenput1

Promotor: F. Amant

Co-Promotor: Ph. Moerman

1 LeuvenCancerInstitute(LKI), GynecologicOncology, UZGasthuisberg, KatholiekeUniversiteitLeuven, Leuven,Belgium. Department of Pathology, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Correspondence at: I. Vandenput, Catharina Ziekenhuis , michelangelolaan 2, 5623 EJ Eindhoven E-mail: ingridvandenput@telenet.be

Keywords:

Endometrial cancer, tumour biology, prognostic markers, new treatment strategies.


Published online: Oct 05 2011

Abstract

Patients with primary advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer are relatively uncommon and deserve better treatment options. Current treatment options are surgery, radiotherapy, and systemic therapy. Since the outcome is still poor, there is a need to improve our knowledge on molecular markers in order to personalize treatment. In addition, we need to continue the search for new treatment strategies with a better balance between efficacy and toxicity.
In this doctoral thesis, we documented that among molecular and histological markers, blood vessel space involvement and chemotherapy induced regressive changes are new prognostic markers in endometrial cancer. We demonstrated that the tumour biology changes during tumour evolution. The optimal moment to decide on tumour biology is there- fore the recurrent setting. A biopsy of the recurrent tumour is the best guarantee to characterize the tumour correctly. Furthermore, this study showed that neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by interval debulking is a valuable treatment option for endometrial cancer with transperitoneal spread since optimal cytoreduction was achieved in 78% with a low morbidity.
Future studies should look into new biomarkers that predict antitumoral activity and should search for mutations in endometrial cancer and analyse which mutation is sensitive for therapy.