A hospital-based multicentric study results on gestational trophoblastic disease management status in a developing country

Objective: To determine the clinical management of gestational trophoblasti c disease in Turkey. Material and Methods: An inquiry form was sent to 55 health centers includi ng unversity hospitals, maternity hospitals with residency programs and mat ernity hospitals without residency programs in 1997. The inquiry consisted of questions about the type of classification systems in use, distribution of cases according to those classifications, use of prophylactic chemothera py and its indications, and drug preference for single-agent or combined ch emotherapies. Results: The overall response rate to the conducted inquiry was 47.1%. A cl inical classification system was identified in 60% of the hospitals in Turk ey. Generally, methotrexate was the most used single-agent chemotherapy. Wi th regard to first-line combined chemotherapy, MAC (methotrexate, antinomyc in-D, cyclophosphamide) was the preferred combination. EMA-CO (etoposide, m ethotrexate, actinomycin-D, cyclophosphamide, vincristine) was the most com mon used second-line chemotherapeutic regimen. Conclusion: Due to insufficient data acquisition from all the medical cente rs and a lack of national population-based studies, it is difficult to draw a conclusion with respect to the interpretation of the data about the mana gement protocols of gestational trophoblastic disease.