Trends in demographic and clinical characteristics in women diagnosed with corpus cancer and their potential impact on the increasing number of deaths.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine factors responsible for the increasing number of deaths from corpus cancer over three time periods. Data were collected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database from 1988-2001. Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were performed. Of 48,510 women with corpus cancer, there was an increase in the proportion of patients dying from advanced cancers (52.1% to 56.0% to 68.8%; P < .001), grade 3 disease (47.5% to 53.3% to 60.6%; P < .001), serous tumors (14.3% to 18.4% to 16.6%; P < .001), and sarcomas (19.1% to 20.4% to 27.2%; P < .001) over time. On multivariate analysis, older age, African American race, lack of primary staging procedures, advanced-stage, high-grade, and non-endometrioid histology were independent prognostic factors for worse survival. Our data suggest that the increase in mortality in women with corpus cancer over the last 14 years may be related to an increased rate of advanced-stage cancers and high-risk histologies.