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NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – Cancer of the vulva is becoming more common, and as incidence is rising, so are death rates from the relatively rare malignancy. A new examination of women with early-stage vulvar cancer showed that recurrence was common, and carried a poor prognosis.
Cancer in “nearly 25% of women with stage IB squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva will recur within 3 years of initial diagnosis,” said the study’s lead author, Rebecca Stone, MD, at the annual meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology. Although most (85%) of the cancers that recur do so locally, salvage rates for patients with recurrences are poor, she said in a video interview.
Dr. Stone of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, said that the study looked at the subset of 59 patients with recurrence of their stage IB vulvar cancer, drawing from a total of 244 stage IB patients for whom complete data were available.
Current National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for the treatment of early-stage vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (meaning T1 or 4 cm or smaller T2 lesions) call for adjuvant radiotherapy for patients with positive margins or unresectable lesions. For patients with negative margins after the primary procedure or re-excision, the guidelines say that radiotherapy decisions should be guided by risk factors including margin width, tumor size, the presence of lymphovascular invasion, and the pattern and depth of invasion.
However, Dr. Stone said, “There’s a knowledge gap in our current management of early-stage disease.” Some unknowns include what the threshold should be for tumor recurrence in terms of depth of invasion and size of tumor, whether perineural invasion is a risk factor, and whether adverse clinical factors are important. Also, she said, it’s not known how risk factors combine to increase recurrence risk.
Tumor size, invasion depth over 6 mm, and patient age were all risk factors identified by the study; perineural and lymphovascular invasion were also potential risk factors for recurrence.
The retrospective study, said Dr. Stone, is the largest multi-institutional cohort study examining stage IB vulvar cancer that has been completed, and it accomplished a detailed examination of which patients have recurrences, factors associated with recurrence, and postrecurrence salvage rates.
Dr. Stone reported no disclosures.
The video associated with this article is no longer available on this site. Please view all of our videos on the MDedge YouTube channel
[email protected]
On Twitter @karioakes
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – Cancer of the vulva is becoming more common, and as incidence is rising, so are death rates from the relatively rare malignancy. A new examination of women with early-stage vulvar cancer showed that recurrence was common, and carried a poor prognosis.
Cancer in “nearly 25% of women with stage IB squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva will recur within 3 years of initial diagnosis,” said the study’s lead author, Rebecca Stone, MD, at the annual meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology. Although most (85%) of the cancers that recur do so locally, salvage rates for patients with recurrences are poor, she said in a video interview.
Dr. Stone of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, said that the study looked at the subset of 59 patients with recurrence of their stage IB vulvar cancer, drawing from a total of 244 stage IB patients for whom complete data were available.
Current National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for the treatment of early-stage vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (meaning T1 or 4 cm or smaller T2 lesions) call for adjuvant radiotherapy for patients with positive margins or unresectable lesions. For patients with negative margins after the primary procedure or re-excision, the guidelines say that radiotherapy decisions should be guided by risk factors including margin width, tumor size, the presence of lymphovascular invasion, and the pattern and depth of invasion.
However, Dr. Stone said, “There’s a knowledge gap in our current management of early-stage disease.” Some unknowns include what the threshold should be for tumor recurrence in terms of depth of invasion and size of tumor, whether perineural invasion is a risk factor, and whether adverse clinical factors are important. Also, she said, it’s not known how risk factors combine to increase recurrence risk.
Tumor size, invasion depth over 6 mm, and patient age were all risk factors identified by the study; perineural and lymphovascular invasion were also potential risk factors for recurrence.
The retrospective study, said Dr. Stone, is the largest multi-institutional cohort study examining stage IB vulvar cancer that has been completed, and it accomplished a detailed examination of which patients have recurrences, factors associated with recurrence, and postrecurrence salvage rates.
Dr. Stone reported no disclosures.
The video associated with this article is no longer available on this site. Please view all of our videos on the MDedge YouTube channel
[email protected]
On Twitter @karioakes
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – Cancer of the vulva is becoming more common, and as incidence is rising, so are death rates from the relatively rare malignancy. A new examination of women with early-stage vulvar cancer showed that recurrence was common, and carried a poor prognosis.
Cancer in “nearly 25% of women with stage IB squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva will recur within 3 years of initial diagnosis,” said the study’s lead author, Rebecca Stone, MD, at the annual meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology. Although most (85%) of the cancers that recur do so locally, salvage rates for patients with recurrences are poor, she said in a video interview.
Dr. Stone of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, said that the study looked at the subset of 59 patients with recurrence of their stage IB vulvar cancer, drawing from a total of 244 stage IB patients for whom complete data were available.
Current National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for the treatment of early-stage vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (meaning T1 or 4 cm or smaller T2 lesions) call for adjuvant radiotherapy for patients with positive margins or unresectable lesions. For patients with negative margins after the primary procedure or re-excision, the guidelines say that radiotherapy decisions should be guided by risk factors including margin width, tumor size, the presence of lymphovascular invasion, and the pattern and depth of invasion.
However, Dr. Stone said, “There’s a knowledge gap in our current management of early-stage disease.” Some unknowns include what the threshold should be for tumor recurrence in terms of depth of invasion and size of tumor, whether perineural invasion is a risk factor, and whether adverse clinical factors are important. Also, she said, it’s not known how risk factors combine to increase recurrence risk.
Tumor size, invasion depth over 6 mm, and patient age were all risk factors identified by the study; perineural and lymphovascular invasion were also potential risk factors for recurrence.
The retrospective study, said Dr. Stone, is the largest multi-institutional cohort study examining stage IB vulvar cancer that has been completed, and it accomplished a detailed examination of which patients have recurrences, factors associated with recurrence, and postrecurrence salvage rates.
Dr. Stone reported no disclosures.
The video associated with this article is no longer available on this site. Please view all of our videos on the MDedge YouTube channel
[email protected]
On Twitter @karioakes
AT THE ANNUAL MEETING ON WOMEN’S CANCER
