A comparison of outcomes between concurrent chemoradiotherapy and radiotherapy alone in cancer of the uterine cervix: a single institutional experience

Purpose: To compare failure patterns and evaluate prognostic factors related to survival rates after concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) or radiotherapy (RT) alone in cervical cancer. Materials and Methods: From January 1996 to December 2006, 218 patients with cervical cancer (FIGO Stage IB2 - III) treated with CCRT or RT alone as primary treatments were included, retrospectively. One-hundred eight patients were treated with CCRT and 110 with RT alone. Results: There was no significant difference in failure patterns between the treatment groups, but distant metastasis was the predominant pattern in both groups. The frequent metastatic sites were supraclavicular lymph node, lung, and brain. Treatment group, diabetes, and FIGO Stage were found to be significant for overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), and initial hemoglobin level for DFS. Conclusion: Distant metastasis is the predominant failure pattern and diabetes is one of the independent prognostic factors to survival rates in this study.