Objective The objectives of this study were to evaluate the rates of chemotherapy and radiotherapy delivery in the treatment of uterine serous carcinoma in the Medicare population and to compare clinical outcomes in treated and untreated patients.

Methods The linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results and Medicare databases were queried to identify patients with a diagnosis of uterine serous carcinoma between 1992 and 2009. The impact of chemotherapy on survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Factors predictive of outcome were compared using the Cox proportional hazards model.

Results A total of 2188 patients met study eligibility criteria. Stages I, II, III, and IV diseases accounted for 890 (41%), 174 (8%), 470 (21%), and 654 (30%) of the study population, respectively. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, both, or none, were administered as adjuvant therapy in 635 (29%), 536 (24%), 308 (14%), and 709 (32%) of the study population, respectively. Use of chemotherapy became more frequent over time. Over the study period, and after adjusting for race, time of diagnosis, SEER registry, marital status, stage, age, surgery, lymph node dissection, socioeconomic status, and comorbidity index, there was an association between receipt of radiotherapy alone (hazard ratio [HR], 1.3; 95% CI, 1.04–1.67) and not receiving any treatment (HR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.2–2.01) and worst survival. Survival was not improved over time.

Conclusion Although adjuvant chemotherapy and combination treatment with chemotherapy and radiation were associated with improved survival in our model, there was no significant improvement in survival over time.