Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To determine response rate and survival outcomes of chemotherapeutic treatment in stage IVB, persistent, or recurrent cervical carcinoma patients. METHODS: Medical records of stage IVB or persistent or recurrent cervical carcinoma patients who received chemotherapy from January 2006 to December 2013 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with neuroendocrine carcinoma and patients who received only 1 cycle of chemotherapy were excluded. The demographic data, tumor characteristics, chemotherapeutic agents, and response rate were reported. Factors associated with overall response rate from the first-round chemotherapeutic treatment were analyzed using χ test. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model were used for survival analysis. RESULTS: Of 286 cervical carcinoma patients, 47 patients had stage IVB and 239 patients had persistent or recurrent disease. One hundred sixty-nine patients (59.1%) had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). A majority of disease sites (38.8%) had both local and distant metastases. Overall response rate for first-round chemotherapeutic treatment was 37.8%, with 23.1% of patients having a complete response and 14.7% of patients having a partial response. Regarding disease response, 32.2% of patients had stable disease and 30% had disease progression. Median overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for first-round chemotherapeutic treatment were 11.6 (range, 0.7-108.3) months and 5.6 (range, 0.7-102.2) months, respectively. Patients with distant metastasis had a shorter OS duration with an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 1.78, 95% confidence interval (CI) of 1.09 to 2.90; P = 0.02. Patients with a body mass index of 25 kg/m or more had a longer PFS duration than those with a normal body mass index (adjusted HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.55-0.94; P = 0.018). Patients with non-SCC had a longer PFS duration than that of patients with SCC (adjusted HR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.60-0.99; P = 0.041). CONCLUSIONS: Response rates, median PFS, and median OS of cervical cancer patients treated by chemotherapy in our center were rather high when compared with those of previous gynecologic oncology group studies.