Survival advantage of lymphadenectomy in endometrial cancer

The lymphadenectomy in the treatment of endometrial cancer is a topic of ongoing debate. The direct comparison between no lymphadenectomy, pelvic lymphadenectomy, and pelvic/para-aortic lymphadenectomy regarding overall survival of patients with endometrial cancer is missing.

We performed a multicenter, retrospective, registry-based study of 1502 patients with endometrial cancer treated with no lymphadenectomy (n = 697), systemic pelvic lymphadenectomy (n = 543) and systemic pelvic/para-aortic lymphadenectomy (n = 262). The patients were divided into three groups of recurrence risk: low, intermediate, and high. The outcome measure was overall survival.

Median follow-up was 78 months. Lymphadenectomy did not improve overall survival of patients with low risk of recurrence. The survival effect of systemic lymphadenectomy was significant in patients with intermediate and high risk of recurrence. Multivariate analysis showed that both pelvic (HR 0.63, CI 0.38–0.82, p = 0.001) and combination of pelvic/para-aortic lymphadenectomy (HR 0.50, CI 0.43–0.81, p < 0.0001) significantly reduced the mortality risk in patients with intermediate risk compared to the patients who underwent no lymphadenectomy. In patients with high risk, only combined pelvic/para-aortic lymphadenectomy (HR 0.62, CI 0.48–0.82, p = 0.005) was associated with decreased mortality rate compared with no lymphadenectomy. Among patients with intermediate and high risk of recurrence who did not receive any adjuvant therapy, pelvic/para-aortic lymphadenectomy significantly reduced the mortality risk (HR 0.52, CI 0.37–0.73, p < 0.0001) in comparison with no lymphadenectomy. This management was superior to pelvic lymphadenectomy alone. In patients with low risk of recurrence, lymphadenectomy had no effect on overall survival.

Pelvic/para-aortic lymphadenectomy should be performed in all patients with endometrial cancer at intermediate and high risk of recurrence.