Gynecologic oncology: the German view.

INTRODUCTION: In future there will be major problems in gynecologic oncology concerning the changes in epidemiology, etiology and the individualized multidisciplinary treatment modalities. The gynecologic oncology has to realize the rising incidence of elderly patients and in correlation to the age and the demography of the increase in breast and vulvar cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The literature and the own experience support the use of similar diagnostic and therapeutic efforts for elderly and younger women with modification for elderly patients based only on the comorbidity. For elderly patients, a breast conserving therapy should be preferred as in younger patients. In vulvar cancer, an individualized therapy is also possible. In patients with endometrial cancer, the systematic lymphnode dissection should be realized. CONCLUSION: The radicality does not depend on the measurement of depth of invasion based on the intraoperative frozen section. Only the surgical removal and histologic evaluation of the nodes may accurately determine the actual nodal status. In lymphnode negative patients, the postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy is preventable.

Comparison of rapidly cycled tandem high-dose chemotherapy plus peripheral-blood stem-cell support versus dose-dense conventional chemotherapy for adjuvant treatment of high-risk breast cancer: results of a multicentre phase III trial.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer with extensive axillary-lymph-node involvement has a poor prognosis after conventional treatment. In trials with historical controls, high-dose chemotherapy produced improved outcomes. We compared an intensive double-cycle high-dose chemotherapy regimen with an accelerated conventionally dosed regimen in high-risk breast cancer in a multicentre trial. METHODS: Patients with at least nine positive nodes were randomly assigned either two courses of accelerated (2-week intervals, with filgrastim support), conventionally dosed epirubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by two courses of high-dose chemotherapy (epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and thiotepa supported by peripheral-blood progenitors) or four identical cycles of epirubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by three cycles of accelerated cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil. The primary endpoint was event-free survival. Analyses were done both by intention to treat and per protocol. FINDINGS: 403 patients were enrolled; 201 were assigned high-dose chemotherapy and 202 conventional treatment. The mean number of positive nodes was 17.6, and median follow-up was 48.6 months. 4-year event-free survival (intention-to-treat analysis) was 60% (95% CI 53-67) in the high-dose chemotherapy group and 44% (37-52) in the control group (p=0.00069). The corresponding overall survival was 75% (69-82) versus 70% (64-77; p=0.02). There were no treatment-related deaths. INTERPRETATION: Our finding of significant improvements in both event-free and overall survival for high-dose chemotherapy compared with a dose-dense conventional regimen contrasts with the results of other studies. The discrepancy might be due partly to design differences (tandem, brief induction) between our regimen and those studied in other trials. This approach merits further study.