FEMALE GENITAL-TRACT CANCER

Background. Site-specific cancer frequencies and incidence rates are r eported regularly by the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epi demiology, and End Results (SEER) program, but not by histologic type within site, This report reviews data for 160,977 histologically or cy tologically confirmed invasive and in situ cancers of the female genit al tract. Methods. Data were supplied by the SEER program for histolog ically confirmed cases of uterine corpus, uterine cervix, ovary, vulva , vagina, fallopian tube, and placental cancers diagnosed between 1973 and 1987. Histologic types were reviewed for race, age at diagnosis, incidence, stage, and survival. Results. There were 89,943 invasive an d 71,034 in situ neoplasms. Squamous carcinoma was the most common inv asive malignancy of the cervix (77.1%), vulva (74.4%), and vagina (70. 8%), Adenocarcinoma was the most frequent malignancy in the uterine co rpus (81.5%) and ovary (86.6%), with these percentages reaching 91.6% for corpus and 86.9% for ovary if adenosquamous carcinoma and adenocar cinoma with squamous metaplasia are included. Cervical carcinoma in si tu accounted for 91.0% of all in situ cancers. In situ cancers made up 78.5% of all cervical cancers, 35.1% of vaginal cancers, and 50.4% of vulvar cancers. Conclusions. There are dominant histologic groups in each female genital tract site that are largely responsible for incide nce and survival statistics. Within the groups, however, there are sub types with differing features, Epidemiologic studies may provide more definite information by considering the effect of these subtypes in ex amining risk factors.