Comparison Between Conventional Surgery Plus Postoperative Adjuvant Radiotherapy and Concurrent Chemoradiation for FIGO Stage IIB Cervical Carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: To compare treatment outcome of conventional surgery followed by adjuvant postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) versus concurrent chemoradiation therapy (cCRT) for stage IIB cervical carcinoma. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted of 59 patients with stage IIB uterine cervical cancer treated with radical surgery plus PORT (N = 34) or cCRT-alone (N = 25) from April 1996 to June 2008. The median follow-up time was 27 months (range, 3-150 months) in the cCRT group and 44 months (range, 4-134 months) in the PORT group. The median age was 59 years (range, 37-85 years) in the cCRT group and 49 years (range, 32-74 years) in the PORT group. All 34 patients in the surgery group underwent hysterectomy with pelvic lymph node dissection and received PORT. Twenty-five patients (42%) were assigned to the cCRT group. RESULTS: The 3-year overall survival rates for surgery plus PORT and cCRT-alone were 80.0% and 75.1%, respectively. The difference between these 2 treatments was not statistically significant (log-rank P = 0.5871). The late complication rate of grade 3-4 was 12% in the cCRT group and 26% in the surgery group. CONCLUSION: This retrospective study suggests that survival results with cCRT and with conventional surgery plus PORT for patients with stage IIB cervical carcinoma are comparable.