Three-dimensional power Doppler angiography in endometrial cancer: correlation with tumor characteristics.

OBJECTIVE To assess the correlation between intratumoral vascularization using three-dimensional power Doppler angiography (3D-PDA) and several histological tumor characteristics in a series of patients with endometrial carcinoma. METHODS Ninety-nine women (mean age, 61.7 (range, 31-84) years) diagnosed as having endometrial cancer were assessed by transvaginal 3D-PDA before surgical staging. Endometrial volume (EV) and 3D-PDA vascular indices (vascularization index (VI), flow index (FI) and vascularization flow index (VFI)) were calculated using the Virtual Organ Computer-aided AnaLysis (VOCAL) method. All patients were surgically staged. Individual tumor features such as histological type, tumor grade, myometrial infiltration depth, lymph-vascular space involvement, cervical involvement, lymph node metastases and tumor stage were considered for analysis. Multivariate logistic regression (MLR) analysis was used to determine which 3D-PDA parameters were independently associated with each histological characteristic. RESULTS MLR analysis showed that only EV and VI were independently associated with myometrial infiltration (EV: odds ratio (OR), 1.119 (95% CI, 1.025-1.221), P = 0.012; VI: OR, 1.127 (95% CI, 1.063-1.195), P = 0.001) and tumor stage (EV: OR, 1.103 (95% CI, 1.012-1.202), P = 0.025; VI: OR, 1.120 (95% CI, 1.057-1.187), P = 0.001), only VI was independently associated with tumor grade (OR, 1.056 (95% CI, 1.023-1.091), P = 0.001) and only EV was independently associated with lymph node metastases (OR, 1.086 (95% CI, 1.017-1.161), P = 0.001). CONCLUSION 3D-PDA analysis of tumor vascularization in endometrial cancer correlates with some prognostic histological characteristics.