Article Text
Abstract
Introduction/Background Lymph node involvement in patients with endometrioid adenocarcinoma occurs in 14% of them. There is evidence that lymphadenectomy has no therapeutic value in early stages, but some retrospective studies identify the tumor size greater than 2 cm as an independent risk factor for lymph node involvement in patients with early stages (IA and IB).
Our objective is to know the relationship between tumor size and lymph node involvement in patients in early stages of endometrial cancer.
Methodology An observational analytical study of a retrospective cohort was carried out, whose population was all patients with early stages of endometrial cancer, attended in our center between 2013–2018, who underwent systematic pelvic lymphadenectomy. The early-stage group, as per the Mayo criteria, was defined by: grade 1 or 2 tumor histology and less than 50% myometrial invasion.
We included 58 patients, the study variables were tumor size and lymph node involvement.
Fisher’s exact test was used to determine possible associations, differences were considered statistically significant at p<0.05.
Results According to the tumor size, 50% (29) were <2 cm and 50% (29) >2 cm. In the group of patients with tumor size >2 cm, the percentage of lymph node affection was 6,89% (n=2) vs. 0% in the group with tumor size <2 cm.
We don't detect statistically significant difference between the two groups (p=0,4912).
Conclusion No patient with tumor size less than 2 cm had lymph node involvement. Although it is not statistically significant, we see a tendency to increase lymph node involvement in tumor sizes larger than 2 cm.
Disclosure Our study supports previously published findings, that patients with and early-stage cancer with a tumor size less than 2 cm have a very low risk of lymph node involvement, so routine lymphadenectomy is not recommended. But additional studies with a larger sample would be useful to identify statistical differences in the group of tumor size >2 cm.