Practice Guidelines: Uterine CorpusEndometrial Cancer

Endometrial cancer is the most common type of female genital cancer in the United States, with an estimated 32,000 new cases and 5,600 deaths per year. During the first half of the 20th century, the incidence of cervical cancer was greater than cancer of the endometrium by a ratio of more than three to one, but this trend reversed around the middle of the century. Endometrial cancer is a disease predominantly of postmenopausal women with the peak incidence occurring in the ages of 58 to 60 years. The following guidelines refer primarily to endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinomas, which represent the most common type and are associated with unopposed estrogen exposure, obesity, and the precursor lesions known as endometrial hyperplasia. In contrast, the serous and clear cell subtypes represent an entirely different clinical and pathologic entity, with associated poor prognosis, hormonal unresponsiveness, and without identifiable precursor lesions.