Knez Jure, Al Mahdawi Leyla, Takač Iztok, Sobočan Monika
Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Faculty of Medicine University of Maribor, Taborska ulica 8, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
Divison for Gynaecology and Perinatology, University Medical Centre Maribor, Ljubljanska ulica 5, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
Cancers (Basel). 2021 Feb 3;13(4):602. doi: 10.3390/cancers13040602.
Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological cancer in developed countries. The disease is diagnosed with increasing frequency in younger women, commonly also in their reproductive age. The standard treatment of endometrial cancer is surgical in the form of hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and this precludes future fertility in younger women. The current challenge is to identify the group of women with endometrial cancer and low-risk features that would benefit from more conservative treatment options. More focus in management needs to be aimed towards the preservation of quality of life, without jeopardizing oncological outcomes. In this review, we analyze the current approaches to identification of women for conservative management and evaluate the success of different medical options for treatment and surgical techniques that are fertility sparing. We also elaborate on the future perspectives, focusing on the incorporation of molecular characterization of endometrial cancer to fertility preservation algorithms. Future studies should focus specifically on identifying reliable clinical and molecular predictive markers in this group of young women. With improved knowledge and better risk assessment, the precision medicine is the path towards improved understanding of the disease and possibly widening the group of women that could benefit from treatment methods preserving their fertility.
子宫内膜癌是发达国家最常见的妇科癌症。在年轻女性中,尤其是在育龄期女性中,该疾病的诊断频率日益增加。子宫内膜癌的标准治疗方法是子宫切除术和双侧输卵管卵巢切除术,这使得年轻女性无法再生育。当前的挑战是确定患有子宫内膜癌且具有低风险特征的女性群体,她们将从更保守的治疗方案中获益。在管理中,更多的关注点应放在在不危及肿瘤治疗效果的前提下,如何保持生活质量。在这篇综述中,我们分析了目前识别适合保守治疗女性的方法,并评估了不同的药物治疗选择以及保留生育功能的手术技术的成功率。我们还阐述了未来的展望,重点是将子宫内膜癌的分子特征纳入生育力保留算法中。未来的研究应特别关注在这群年轻女性中识别可靠的临床和分子预测标志物。随着知识的提高和风险评估的改善,精准医学是增进对该疾病理解的途径,并且可能会扩大能够从保留生育功能的治疗方法中获益的女性群体。