Multimodality adjuvant therapy and survival outcomes in stage I–IV uterine carcinosarcoma

Abstract

Objectives Uterine carcinosarcoma is a rare, aggressive form of uterine cancer with a high recurrence rate and poor survival at all stages. We sought to evaluate the outcomes of patients treated with chemotherapy versus a combination of chemotherapy and radiation (chemoradiation) to determine survival. Methods A multicenter retrospective analysis of patients with stage I–IV carcinosarcoma was conducted from January 2000 to December 2017. Inclusion criteria were primary surgical management, defined as hysterectomy ± salpingo-oophorectomy, comprehensive surgical staging and/or tumor debulking, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiation. Differences in the frequencies of stage, cytoreduction status, treatment delays and sites of disease recurrence were identified using Pearson’s χ² test. Progression-free and overall survival rates were calculated using Kaplan-Meier estimates. Results Final analysis included 148 patients; 40.5% (n=60) chemotherapy and 59.5% (n=88) chemoradiation. The mean age was 67 years (range 39–89). Stage distribution included 24.3% stage I, 12.2% stage II, 37.2% stage III, and 26.3% stage IV. There was no difference in the frequency of stage (p=0.81), cytoreduction status (p=0.61), treatment delays (p=0.57), or location of recurrence (p=0.97) between cohorts. The most frequent location of recurrence was the abdomen (50.0%). The median progression-free survival favored chemoradiation over chemotherapy (15 vs 11 months, respectively), as did the median overall survival (26 vs 20 months, respectively). Chemoradiation was associated with a statistically significant improvement in 2 year progression-free survival (22.5% vs 13.6%; p=0.006) and 2 year overall survival (50.0% vs 35.6%; p=0.018) compared with chemotherapy alone. On subanalysis of patients receiving chemoradiation, ‘sandwich sequencing’ (chemotherapy–radiation–chemotherapy) was associated with superior overall survival compared with alternate therapy sequences (chemotherapy–radiation and radiation–chemotherapy) (34 months vs 14 months and 14 months, respectively) (p=0.038). Conclusions Chemoradiation was associated with improvement in both progression-free and overall survival for all stages of carcinosarcoma compared with chemotherapy alone.