Gynecologic Oncology
Gynecologic Oncology
5 years ago

Prognostic factors for local recurrence of squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva: A systematic review

In patients treated for early-stage squamous cell vulvar carcinoma local recurrence is reported in up to 40% after ten years. Knowledge on prognostic factors related to local recurrences should be helpful to select high risk patients and/or to develop strategies to prevent local recurrences. Objective This systematic review aims to evaluate the current knowledge on the incidence of local recurrences in vulvar carcinoma related to clinicopathologic and cell biologic variables. Data sources Relevant studies were identified by an extensive online electronic search in July 2017. Study eligibility criteria Studies reporting prognostic factors specific for local recurrences of vulvar carcinoma were included. Study appraisal and synthesis methods Two review authors independently performed data selection, extraction and assessment of study quality. The risk difference was calculated for each prognostic factor when described in two or more studies. Results Twenty-two studies were included; most of all were retrospective and mainly reported pathologic prognostic factors. Our review indicates an estimated annual local recurrence rate of 4% without plateauing. The prognostic relevance for local recurrence of vulvar carcinoma of all analyzed variables remains equivocal, including pathologic tumor free margin distance <8mm, presence of lichen sclerosus, groin lymph node metastases and a variety of primary tumor characteristics (grade of differentiation, tumor size, tumor focality, depth of invasion, lymphovascular space invasion, tumor localization and presence of human papillomavirus). Conclusions Current quality of data on prognostic factors for local recurrences in vulvar carcinoma patients does not allow evidence-based clinical decision making. Further research on prognostic factors, applying state of the art methodology is needed to identify high-risk patients and to develop alternative primary and secondary prevention strategies.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0090825817314993

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.