Consolidation Chemotherapy for Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer

Abstract

Consolidation Chemotherapy for  Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer

Siriwan TangjitgamolMD*

Xi Cheng MD**

Cervical cancer is a major health problem of women all over the world. Most of cervical cancer cases and deaths occurred in developing countries, such as Thailand, China, and India, etc. This is probably due to a suboptimal screening coverage leading to a high proportion of locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) or advanced stage disease, resulting in a poor overall prognosis. Although concurrent chemoradiation therapy is a standard treatment for LACC, high rates of local and distant failures are still encountered. New treatment modalities e.g. new chemotherapeutic regimens, combining chemotherapy with novel target agents or modification of chemotherapy dose or schedule are important. Our review focused on the role of adjuvant or consolidation chemotherapy after the standard concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CCRT) in LACC. From the studies reviewed, additional chemotherapy appeared to yield a higher response rate and increased toxicities than simply CCRT. However, survival benefit from consolidation or adjuvant chemotherapy was still inconsistent. We explored each study in detail and discuss their findings to point out some important data which will be helpful in clinical management of these LACC patients.

Keywords: locally advanced cervical cancer, consolidation chemotherapy, adjuvant chemotherapy