Peritumorous lymph-vascular invasion, grade of histologic differentiation, and myometrial infiltration as prognostic factors of endometrial carcinoma.

The authors evaluated 50 patients with endometrial carcinoma studying the prognostic parameters: histologic grade, myometrial invasion and lymph-vascular space invasion. The patients were divided into two groups: A--a good prognosis group (33 cases)--with no recurrences and/or metastasis occurring for five years; and B--a bad prognosis group (17 cases)--with recurrence and/or metastasis or death within five years. We concluded that lymph-vascular space invasion was more frequent in group B, and was a reliable parameter for bad prognosis. The lymph-vascular space invasion was always accompanied by myometrial invasion and patients whose myometrium had not been involved did not have lymph-vascular space invasion. In both groups, in well-differentiated tumors, there was no lymph-vascular space involvement. The well-differentiated tumors were statistically more frequent in the good prognosis group. Myometrial invasion was not statistically significant as a prognostic parameter.