Comparison of adenocarcinoma and adenosquamous carcinoma prognoses in Chinese patients with FIGO stage IB-IIA cervical cancer following radical surgery

BACKGROUND: To compare adenocarcinoma (AC) and adenosquamous carcinoma (ASC) prognoses in patients with FIGO stage IB–IIA cervical cancer who underwent radical hysterectomy. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of 240 patients with AC and 130 patients with ASC. Kaplan–Meier curves, Cox regression models, and log-rank tests were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Patients with ASC had higher frequencies of lymphovascular space invasion (LVSI) and serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) > 5 ng/ml (p = 0.049 and p = 0.013, respectively); moreover, they were much older (P = 0.029) than patients with AC. There were no clinically significant differences in overall survival (OS) between the groups. When stratified into three risk groups based on clinicopathological features, survival outcomes did not differ between patients with AC and those with ASC in any risk group. Multivariate analysis showed that lymph node metastasis (LNM) was an independent risk factor for recurrence-free survival (RFS) and OS in patients with AC and in patients with ASC. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) > 5 ng/ml and SCC-Ag > 5 ng/ml were independent predictors of RFS and OS in patients with AC. In addition, among those stratified as intermediate-risk, patients with ASC who received concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) had significantly better RFS and OS (P = 0.036 and P = 0.047, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: We did not find evidence to suggest that AC and ASC subtypes of cervical cancer were associated with different survival outcomes. CCRT is beneficial for survival in intermediate-risk patients with ASC, but not in those with AC. Serum tumour markers can assist in evaluating prognosis and in providing additional information for patient-tailored therapy for cervical AC.