An evaluation of the clinical staging of endometrial cancer.

Therapeutic approaches to endometrial cancer have traditionally been based on preoperative clinical staging. We conducted a retrospective review of 56 women with diagnoses of stage I and II endometrial cancer in order to compare preoperative clinical staging with postoperative staging based on pathologic data. We found a change in stage based on surgical findings in 41.1% of the cases. Endocervical curettage was falsely positive in 92.8% of cases. In addition, an overall change in tumor grade occurred in 39.3% of patients. Preoperative clinical staging of endometrial cancer is associated with a large margin of error when compared to surgical pathologic data.