The prognostic value of chemotherapy or/and radiotherapy in adenoid cystic carcinoma and adenoid basal carcinoma of the uterine cervix

BACKGROUND: Cervical adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) and adenoid basal carcinoma (ABC) are rare cervical cancer types and have unclarified clinicopathological features and survival outcomes. This retrospective study focused on predicting the value of radiotherapy or/and chemotherapy for cervical ACC and ABC patients. METHODS: The clinical data of cervical ACC and ABC patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 1973 and 2013 were included. The clinicopathological features, Kaplan-Meier curves, and overall survival (OS) of patients were evaluated. The prognostic nomogram was established based on the multivariate Cox models. To validate the nomogram prediction, Harrell’s Concordance index (C-index) was calculated and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated. RESULTS: A total of 84 cervical ACC and 82 ABC patients were identified, and ABC patients had better 10-year OS than ACC patients (60.81% vs. 36.94%, P=0.001). Age, ACC, surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and regional node involvement were significantly correlated with patient prognosis. In the multivariate analysis, only age >80 years (HR =5.945, 95% CI: 1.912–18.485, P=0.002) and age 70–80 years (HR =4.803, 95% CI: 1.626–14.188, P=0.005) were independent predictors of patient prognosis. In subgroup analysis, patients who underwent surgery (HR =2.199, 95% CI: 1.085–4.455, P=0.029) and the ABC subgroup (HR =4.233, 95% CI: 1.532–11.696, P=0.005) received radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or chemoradiotherapy with a poor prognosis. Patients received radiotherapy (HR =1.936, 95% CI: 1.208–3.105, P=0.006) was associated with a poor prognosis, while surgical patients had a better prognosis (HR =0.535, 95% CI: 0.344–0.832, P=0.006). CONCLUSIONS: Cervical ABC patients had a better survival time than cervical ACC patients. We found that increased age was potentially an independent risk factor for poor prognosis, surgical patients had a better prognosis, and radiotherapy, or chemotherapy combination treatment had an unfavorable tendency to prognosis.