Recurrent uterine cancer is cancer that has returned after primary treatment.

A variety of factors ultimately influence a patient's decision to receive treatment of cancer. The purpose of receiving cancer treatment may be to improve symptoms through local control of the cancer, increase a patient's chance of cure, or prolong a patient's survival. The potential benefits of receiving cancer treatment must be carefully balanced with the potential risks of receiving cancer treatment.

The following is a general overview of the treatment of recurrent uterine cancer. Circumstances unique to your situation and prognostic factors of your cancer may ultimately influence how these general treatment principles are applied. The information on this Web site is intended to help educate you about your treatment options and to facilitate a mutual or shared decision-making process with your treating cancer physician.

Most new treatments are developed in clinical trials. Clinical trials are studies that evaluate the effectiveness of new drugs or treatment strategies. The development of more effective cancer treatments requires that new and innovative therapies be evaluated with cancer patients. Participation in a clinical trial may offer access to better treatments and advance the existing knowledge about treatment of this cancer. Clinical trials are available for most stages of cancer. Patients who are interested in participating in a clinical trial should discuss the risks and benefits of clinical trials with their physician. To ensure that you are receiving the optimal treatment of your cancer, it is important to stay informed and follow the cancer news in order to learn about new treatments and the results of clinical trials.

For most women, recurrent uterine cancer is incurable with currently available standard therapies. If the recurrence follows primary treatment with surgery alone and is detected early, cure is still attainable with additional surgery and/or radiation therapy. Unfortunately, the removal of all cancer cannot typically be achieved for the majority of patients with recurrent disease. For these patients, treatment of recurrent uterine cancer is dictated by the site of metastatic cancer and symptoms related to the spread of cancer. The goal of treatment for women with recurrent uterine cancer is to reduce symptoms and prolong survival.

Women with Early Stage Cancer who Treatment with Fail Surgery Alone

Women who initially had stage I or IIB cancer and experienced a recurrence after treatment with surgery alone are frequently cured with further surgery and the addition of radiation therapy. Radiation therapy is usually given as brachytherapy (placement of a radioactive isotope near the cancer) and external beam radiation therapy. This therapy is often successful since stage I and IIB patients treated initially with surgery alone have frequent follow-up examinations, which allow for detection of a recurrence early, when it is curable. For patients with bulky pelvic disease, radiation therapy consisting of a combination of brachytherapy and external-beam radiation therapy is frequently used. Radiation therapy can decrease symptoms and improve survival for patients with inoperable uterine cancer.

Women who Fail Surgery and Radiation Therapy

Further radiation therapy in women who experience a recurrence following initial radiation is usually not possible. However, some women will fail treatment that only included brachytherapy and these women could be treated with external beam radiation therapy if they develop a recurrence in the pelvis away from the site of isotope placement.

Primary Hormone Therapy

Hormonal treatment of cancers that have estrogen or progesterone receptors can delay cancer progression and prolong survival, especially in patients with small amounts of cancer not involving the lung or liver. Estrogen and progesterone are female hormones produced mainly by the ovaries and are found circulating in the blood. Many organs in the body are composed of cells that respond to or are regulated by exposure to these hormones. Cells in the breast, uterus and other female organs have estrogen and progesterone receptors and when exposed to these hormones, are stimulated to grow. When cells that have these receptors become cancerous, the growth of these cancer cells can be increased by exposure to the female hormones.

The basis of hormonal therapy as a treatment for uterine cancer is to block or prevent the cancer cells from being exposed to estrogen and progesterone hormones. Removal of the ovaries, the organ chiefly responsible for producing these hormones, is one effective approach to eliminating hormone production and is commonly used in many countries. Another approach is to utilize drugs that can accomplish a similar effect without removing the ovaries.

Progestational agents have long been used in the treatment of advanced or recurrent uterine cancer because of the presence of receptors for these agents on the cancer cells. Well-differentiated cancers respond better to progestational agents than undifferentiated cancers. Progestational agents that have been used include hydroxyprogesterone, medroxyprogesterone and megestrol. These agents produce a partial or complete disappearance of cancer in 20-29% of women with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer. The combination of a progestional agent (megestrol) and tamoxifen (an anti-estrogen) may be better treatment than megestrol alone. In one study performed by the Gynecology Oncology Group, 61 patients with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer were treated with megestrol and tamoxifen. The complete response rate was 21% and 5.4% had a partial response. The average survival was 14 months. Toxicity was moderate and there were no treatment related deaths. Of those who responded, 50% sustained this response for an average of 20 months. It was noted that, overall, younger women had better responses to the treatment than older women. From these findings, the researchers concluded that megestrol and tamoxifen appears to be an active combination against advanced and recurrent endometrial cancers.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the use of chemicals (drugs or medications) to kill cancer cells. Numerous chemicals have been developed for this purpose and most act to injure the DNA of cells. When the DNA is injured, the cells cannot grow or survive. Successful chemotherapy depends on the cancer cells being at least somewhat more sensitive to the chemicals than the normal cells. Because the cells of the bone marrow, the intestinal tract, the skin, and hair follicles are also very sensitive to these chemicals, injury to these organs are common side effects of chemotherapy (i.e., mouth sores, diarrhea, rashes, and hair loss).

Doxorubicin was the standard chemotherapy treatment for women with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer for over a decade. When doxorubicin is administered as a single agent, it reduces the amount of cancer in about 25% of women with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer. Doxorubicin is now being administered in combination with other chemotherapy agents. A comparison of doxorubicin administered alone to doxorubicin plus Platinol® in women with uterine cancer showed that the combination reduced the amount of cancer in 45% of women, compared to only 27% for doxorubicin alone. Thus, doxorubicin and Platinol® became the standard chemotherapy drug combination for treatment of women with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer.

Recently, the Gynecologic Oncology Group compared the standard doxorubicin and Platinol® treatment regimen to doxorubicin and paclitaxel. This study randomly allocated 314 women with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer to receive doxorubicin combined with either Platinol® or paclitaxel. Paclitaxel was given with Neupogen ® to hasten recovery of blood counts. Side effects were similar between both treatments. The response rate following doxorubicin and Platinol® was 40% and 15% of these were complete responses. The response rate following doxorubicin and paclitaxel was 43% and 17% of these were complete responses. Longer follow-up is required to determine whether either treatment prolonged survival.

Chemotherapy and Hormonal Therapy

Chemotherapy and hormonal therapy prevent cancer cells from growing by different methods. Combining chemotherapy with hormonal therapy may reduce cancer cell growth more than either treatment administered alone. Researchers in Greece have evaluated a four-drug combination of Paraplatin®, methotrexate, fluorouracil and medroxyprogesterone. These physicians treated 23 patients with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer. None of the patients had received prior chemotherapy or hormonal therapy and 10 had received prior radiation therapy. Responses were observed in 74% of women, with two long-lasting complete remissions. The average duration of response was over 10 months and the average survival was over 16 months. This regimen was administered on an outpatient basis and was well tolerated. These doctors concluded that this was an active treatment regimen for women with advanced or recurrent uterine cancer.

Strategies to Improve Treatment

The progress that has been made in the treatment of recurrent uterine cancer has resulted from improved hormonal treatments, chemotherapy treatments and doctor and patient participation in clinical studies. Future progress in the treatment of recurrent uterine cancer will result from continued participation in appropriate studies. Currently, there are several areas of active exploration aimed at improving the treatment of recurrent uterine cancer.