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Options for Adjuvant Therapy for Uterine Leiomyosarcoma

  • Sarcoma (SH Okuno, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Opinion statement

Uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS) is a rare disease; in the data from the SEER database, 3165 cases of uLMS were diagnosed between January 2000 and December 2012. While a majority of patients (60%) are diagnosed with early stage disease, recurrence rates are high. Five-year disease-specific survival is 76% for patients with FIGO stage I and 60% for patients with FIGO stage II disease. Adjuvant treatments, including radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and combined modality approaches, have been explored with the goal of demonstrating improved survival. However, heterogeneous patient populations, small sample sizes, and lack of no-treatment control arms have limited the interpretation and reliability of the results from these studies. A randomized trial of adjuvant pelvic radiation compared to no additional treatment showed that adjuvant radiation did not improve recurrence or survival outcomes for early-stage uterine LMS. To date, no prospective, randomized trial has been completed comparing adjuvant chemotherapy to observation. A recent well-designed retrospective study showed that women treated with adjuvant gemcitabine-docetaxel had no improvement in progression-free or overall survival compared to women who received no additional treatment. Thus, current data support our recommendation against adjuvant radiation or chemotherapy treatment for patients with non-morcellated, completely resected, and uterine-confined leiomyosarcoma. We recommend that these patients be observed with periodic surveillance imaging and physical examinations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 300 E. 66th Street, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Claire F. Friedman MD

  2. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 300 E. 66th Street, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Martee L. Hensley MD

Authors
  1. Claire F. Friedman MD
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  2. Martee L. Hensley MD
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Correspondence to Claire F. Friedman MD.

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Conflict of Interest

Claire F. Friedman declares that she has no conflict of interest. Martee L. Hensley has received clinical trial support through a grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb, has served on advisory boards for both Lilly Oncology and Janssen, and her spouse is employed with Sanofi.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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The article is part of the Topical Collection on Sarcoma

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Friedman, C.F., Hensley, M.L. Options for Adjuvant Therapy for Uterine Leiomyosarcoma. Curr. Treat. Options in Oncol. 19, 7 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-018-0526-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-018-0526-0

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