PERITONEAL CYTOLOGY AND ITS PROGNOSTIC VALUE IN ENDOMETRIAL CARCINOMA

Background. There has been a controversy about the prognostic signific ance of positive peritoneal cytology in endometrial carcinoma. Materia ls and methods. Peritoneal cytology was obtained at the time of surger y, including systematic retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, in 114 patients.Results. The incidence of positive peritoneal cytology was 35 .1%, The 5-year survival rates of the stage IIIA and IIIC (FIGO, 1988) cases were 82.8% and 58.3%, respectively, In pathological stage I (th e disease was histologically confined to the uterine corpus), there wa s no significant difference in 5-year survival rates between patients with and without positive peritoneal cytology, Though the patients in stage IIIA who had only positive peritoneal cytology were given no pos toperative therapy unless they had extrauterine disease, no patients d eveloped recurrence, In stages IIIC and IV, the prognosis was signific antly poorer for patients with positive peritoneal cytology than for t hose with negative cytology. Conclusion. Positive peritoneal cytology is not an adverse prognostic factor of endometrial carcinoma if diseas e is limited to the uterus.