THE PROGNOSTIC-SIGNIFICANCE OF POSITIVE PERITONEAL CYTOLOGY IN ENDOMETRIAL CANCER

A retrospective analysis of clinical data extracted from hospital reco rds of 145 patients who had had primary surgical treatment for endomet rial cancer in Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, from 1987 to 1993 was p erformed to study the prognostic significance of positive peritoneal c ytology. Positive peritoneal cytology was found to be associated with poor prognostic factors such as deep myometrial invasion, high grade t umor, extrauterine spread and lymphovascular permeation. By univariate analysis, all the poor prognostic factors were found to be significan t in affecting survival. These included age above 65, nonadenocarcinom a histology, deep myometrial invasion, positive cytology, extrauterine involvement and lymphovascular involvement. By multivariate analysis, only histology and extrauterine involvement remained significant. In patients with positive cytology, 61.1% had extrauterine involvement at initial presentation. Patients who had positive cytology and extraute rine disease had the shortest survival. The survival was independent o f cytology result when the tumor was confined to the uterus.