Negrão Marcelo Vailati, Lima Julianne Maria da Silva, Silva Samantha Cabral Severino, Diz Maria Del Pilar Estevez, da Costa Miranda Vanessa
Department of Medical Oncology, Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Int J Gynecol Cancer. 2017 Mar;27(3):543-549. doi: 10.1097/IGC.0000000000000914.
Cervical cancer remains a prevalent and deadly disease in low-income countries, especially among young and otherwise healthy women. Multimodality treatment has led to a significant improvement in outcomes for patients with locally advanced disease, and this is mainly because of the incorporation of platinum-based chemoradiotherapy in current treatment protocols. However, locally advanced tumors are associated with a greater risk for para-aortic lymph node (PALN) involvement, which is an important adverse prognostic factor. Most staging techniques have low accuracy for detection of disease in this area, which could lead to understaging and undertreatment. Meanwhile, patients with PALN disease are underrepresented in trials addressing the treatment of advanced cervical cancer and a few studies have been directed at this population. The aim of this review is to analyze the current data regarding staging and treatment of cervical cancer with PALN disease to determine which strategy is best when managing these patients.
