Sevgi Koc

Surgery for patients with endometrioid-type endometrial cancer: is lymphadenectomy above the inferior mesenteric artery necessary?

The primary objective of this study was to identify the risk of metastasis to lymph nodes above the inferior mesenteric artery (IMA) in endometrioid-type endometrial cancer (EC) and the factors that influence metastasis. The study included patients who had been operated on for endometrioid-type EC in three gynecological oncology centers between 2007 and 2023. The supramesenteric lymph node (SM-LN) is the region between the left renal vein and the IMA, whereas the inframesenteric lymph node (IM-LN) is the region between the IMA and the aortic bifurcation, as determined by the level of the IMA. The study sample comprised 412 patients. The median number of lymph nodes excised per patient was 58. The median count was 37 for pelvic lymph nodes, 21 for para-aortic lymph nodes, 8 for IM-LN, and 13 for SM-LN. In the univariate analysis, the factors that were found to be statistically significant in determining SM-LN metastasis included tumor size, depth of myometrial invasion, uterine serosal invasion, lymphovascular space invasion (LVSI), cervical invasion, peritoneal cytology, adnexal metastasis, omental metastasis, non-nodal extrauterine metastasis, pelvic lymph node metastasis, and IM-LN metastasis. In the multivariate analysis, SM-LN metastasis was independently associated with tumor size, LVSI, pelvic lymph node metastasis, and IM-LN metastasis. In conclusion, in cases of intermediate-high risk EC, it is important to know that the disease spreads to SM-LN in 7.3% of patients. The efficacy of postoperative adjuvant treatment may be inadequate due to a lack of information regarding the SM-LN region.

Prognostic factors of adult granulosa cell tumors of the ovary: a Turkish retrospective multicenter study

To define the clinical, histopathological features and the prognostic factors affecting survival in patients with adult granulosa cell tumors of the ovary (AGCT). A 322 patients whose final pathologic outcome was AGCT treated at nine tertiary oncology centers between 1988 and 2021 participated in the study. The mean age of the patients was 51.3±11.8 years and ranged from 21 to 82 years. According to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics 2014, 250 (77.6%) patients were stage I, 24 (7.5%) patients were stage II, 20 (6.2%) patients were stage III, and 3 (7.8%) were stage IV. Lymphadenectomy was added to the surgical procedure in 210 (65.2%) patients. Lymph node involvement was noted in seven (3.3%) patients. Peritoneal cytology was positive in 19 (5.9%) patients, and 13 (4%) had metastases in the omentum. Of 285 patients who underwent hysterectomy, 19 (6.7%) had complex hyperplasia with atypia/endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia, and 8 (2.8%) had grade 1 endometrioid endometrial carcinoma. It was found that 93 (28.9%) patients in the study group received adjuvant treatment. Bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin was the most commonly used chemotherapy protocol. The median follow-up time of the study group was 41 months (range, 1-276 months). It was noted that 34 (10.6%) patients relapsed during this period, and 9 (2.8%) patients died because of the disease. The entire cohort had a 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) of 86% and a 5-year disease-specific survival of 98%. Recurrences were observed only in the pelvis in 13 patients and the extra-abdominal region in 7 patients. The recurrence rate increased 6.168-fold in patients with positive peritoneal cytology (95% confidence interval [CI]=1.914-19.878; p=0.002), 3.755-fold in stage II-IV (95% CI=1.275-11.063; p=0.016), and 2.517-fold in postmenopausal women (95% CI=1.017-6.233; p=0.046) increased. In this study, lymph node involvement was detected in 3.3% of patients with AGCT. Therefore, it was concluded that lymphadenectomy can be avoided in primary surgical treatment. Positive peritoneal cytology, stage, and menopausal status were independent prognostic predictors of DFS.