Adenocarcinoma of uterine cervix -- prognostic significance of clinicopathologic parameters.

AIM To investigate prognostic significance of several clinicopathologic parameters in patients with adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix. METHODS We retrospectively studied 36 patients treated at the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Zagreb University School of Medicine, Croatia, in the period from 1978-1998. Cox proportional hazard analysis was performed to examine the prognostic significance of menstrual status, clinical stage, architectural grade, nuclear grade, DNA ploidy, proliferative activity, and mode of therapy. RESULTS The 5-year survival for this group of patients was 75%. The following parameters proved to be statistically significant in a univariate analysis: clinical stage (P=0.042), architectural grade (P=0.009), and nuclear grade (P=0.002). In the multivariate analysis, the nuclear grade (P=0.007) turned out to be the only statistically significant parameter. According to the nuclear grade, the five-year survival was 80% in the prognostically favorable and only 30% in the unfavorable group of patients. CONCLUSION Our data showed that in patients with adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix the nuclear grade, clinical stage, and architectural grade of the tumor represent the most important prognostic parameters. The analysis of DNA ploidy and proliferative activity had no prognostic significance.