Survival impact of lymphadenectomy stratified by nodal metastatic probability in endometrial cancer.

Abstract

Our objective was to identify a subgroup of patients with early-stage endometrial cancer in whom lymphadenectomy was associated with enhanced survival based on the stratification of lymph node (LN) metastasis probability provided by a previously developed nomogram. Data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database for 66,210 patients with histologically proven endometrial cancer were analyzed. For each patient, the LN metastasis probability according to the previously developed nomogram was calculated. Patients were clustered into quintiles according to their LN metastasis probability. The cancer related survival in each quintile group was calculated using Kaplan-Meier analysis and compared based on whether patients underwent lymphadenectomy. Except for the second quintile group, the specific survival rate systematically decreased when the predicted LN probability increased. In the five quintile groups, the 5-year specific survival rate was significantly higher in the patients who did not undergo lymphadenectomy compared with those who underwent lymphadenectomy and had ≥ 10 or <10 LNs removed. Our results suggest the pejorative outcome associated with a higher risk of LN metastasis is not counterbalanced by the lymphadenectomy.