Women with advanced disease need varied therapy, study shows.(cervical cancer)

2002 NOV 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that women with advanced cervical cancer have different odds of survival depending on how far the cancer has spread, as determined by an imaging technique called positron emission tomography (PET).

The findings suggested that some women with stage IIIb cervical cancer, an advanced form of the disease, should receive aggressive therapies or treatment for pain control and comfort. Anurag K. Singh, MD, radiation oncology resident at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, presented the findings October 7, 2002, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's annual meeting in New Orleans. Singh is first author on the paper; the senior author is Perry W. Grigsby, MD, professor of radiation oncology at the School of Medicine's Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.

"These findings are important because they mean we can design future studies to provide patients with different treatments based on the extent of their disease as shown on a whole-body PET scan," said Singh.

The retrospective study found that women with clinical stage IIIb cervical cancer fell into four distinct groups on the basis of PET scans. Women whose cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes had the highest rates of survival, followed by women with cancer cells in the pelvic lymph nodes only. Those whose tumors had spread to lymph nodes in the upper abdomen had poor survival, and those whose cancer had spread to lymph nodes in the upper chest usually died within months of diagnosis.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 13,000 new cases of cervical cancer will occur in 2002 in the United States and 4100 will die from the disease. Because of mass screening ...