Each year over 49,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with endometrial carcinoma making it the most common gynecologic cancer. This accounts for approximately 6percent of new cancer cases in women annually and approximately 3percent of all cancer deaths in women. Endometrial cancer generally carries a favorable prognosis, mainly because the majority of women present with bleeding early on in the disease course. As a result, the disease is caught early and for most women surgery is curable; five-year survival rates of 80-90 percent are generally reported. However, not all women are as fortunate. For women with advanced stage disease or high-risk histologies, the prognosis is poor, with 5-year survival rates of 57percent for regional disease (Stage III) and 19percent for distant spread (Stage IV), respectively. Although non-endometrioid histologies, such as uterine serous cancer and clear cell, constitute less than 10% of all cases of endometrial cancer, they account for a disproportionately high number of cancer-related deaths and cases of recurrence. The poor prognosis associated with serous tumors, in particular, may be due to their advanced disease at the time of diagnosis.
Last date updated on September, 2014