A pilot study of adjuvant therapy in patients with cervical cancer at high risk of recurrence after radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy.

The prognosis after surgical therapy (radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy) of stages IB and IIA carcinoma of the cervix is affected by several histopathologic findings within the resected specimen. Patients at high risk of recurrence include those with involved pelvic lymph nodes, lymphatic or vascular invasion in the cervix, tumor size greater than 4 cm, grade 3 lesions, adenosquamous histology, parametrial invasion, and evidence of locally metastatic (noncontiguous) disease. We report the results of adjuvant chemotherapy (cisplatin and bleomycin) and pelvic radiotherapy in 32 patients with cervix cancer deemed to be at high risk of recurrence after radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy. The continuous disease-free survival rate for the 32 evaluable patients in 84% at a mean and median follow-up time of 28 months. Three patients are dead of disease and two patients are alive after treatment of local recurrences giving a survival rate of 91%. The two patients who are alive after disease recurrence demonstrated only locally recurrent disease while the three patients who have died with recurrent disease relapsed both locally and systemically. Complications of this treatment program were not significantly greater than those observed in prior studies using the combination of surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy without chemotherapy. When compared with the results from historical controls in a large series of similar patients at the same institution, the results in this pilot study are encouraging and would seem to justify a randomized prospective clinical trial.