ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Despite a development fo therapeutic machines and advance in modern radiation therapy techniques, locally advanced cervical carcinoma has shown high rate of local failure and poor survival rate. Combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy demonstrated benefit in improving local control and possibly the overall survival. Our study was performed to evaluate effect of concurrent chemoradiation on locally advanced uterine cervical cancer. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Twenty six patients with locally advanced stage(FIGO stage IIB with > or = 5 cm in diameter, III, IVA) were treated with combination of radiation therapy and concurrent cisplatinum between May of 1988 and Septermber of 1993 at our hopital. Radiation therapy consisted of external irradiation and 1-2 sessions of intracavitary irradiation, Cisplatinum was administered in bolus injection of 25mg/m(2) at weekly intervals during the course of external radiation therapy. RESULTS: Of the 26 patients, twenty-five patients were evaluable for estimation of response. Median follow-up period was 25 months with ranges from 3 to 73 months. Stage IIB, III, and IVA were 16, 5,4 patients, respectively. Twenty patients were squamous cell carcinoma. Response was noted in all 25 patients: complete response(CR) in 17/25(68%), partial response(PR) in 8/25(32%). Of the 24 patients except one who died of sepsis at 3 months follow-up, seventeen patients(70.8%) maintained local control in the pelvis: 16/17(94.1%) in CR, 1/17(14.3%) in PR. Fourteen of the 17 patients with CR are alive disease free on the completion of follow-up. Median survival is 28 months for CR and 15 months for PR. Analysis of 5-year survival by stage shows 11/16(59.8) in IIB, 3/5(60.6%) in III, and 1/4(25.0%) in IVA. Overall 5-year survival rate was 55.2%. Ten Patients recurred: 4 at locoegional,3 in distant metastasis and 3 with locoregional and distant site. Toxicity by addition of cisplatinum was not excessive. CONCLUSION: Although the result of this study was obtained from small number of patients, it is rather encouraging in view of markedly improved response rate compared with the results of historical group.