Trends in epidemiology of preinvasive and invasive vulvar neoplasias - 13 year retrospective analysis in Thrace, Greece

Objective: To describe the trends in incidence of preinvasive and invasive vulvar neoplasias in the rural area of Trace, as well as to check the hypot hesis that patients found with these two distinct entities represent popula tions with different epidemiologic characteristics. Patients and Methods: W e performed a retrospective study on 34 patients found with invasive vulvar cancer and vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN) (12 and 22 respectively) , who referred to our department from 1986-1998. Epidemiologic characterist ics of the patients were abstracted from medical charts. To evaluate our re sults we used the direct standardization method (1995 Eur. Population) and chi(2) test. Results: The age-adjusted incidence rates for VIN1-2, in situ cancer (CIS)-VIN3 and invasive vulvar cancer were 0.9\100,000, 1.6\100,000 and 1.8\100,000 respectively, while for the whole VIN lesions 2.5\100,000. There were statistically significant differences in most epidemiologic char acteristics between the two study groups, one with invasive cancer patients and one with patients found with preinvasive vulvar neoplasia. Conclusions : The overall age-adjusted incidence rate for vulvar neoplasia in Thrace is comparable to the one reported in literature. Our study results confirm th at patients with invasive and preinvasive vulvar neoplasia represent popula tions with different epidemiologic characteristics.