Sparing Is Caring: Hormonal Retreatment in Women with Recurrent Endometrial Cancer after Fertility Preservation Management—A Single Centre Retrospective Study

Abstract

Fertility-sparing treatment (FTS) of endometrial cancer (EC) has a high rate of remission but also a high rate of relapse (10–88%). Many women still wish to conceive at the time of relapse, but results regarding retreatment are still lacking. This study aims to evaluate the safety, oncological and pregnancy outcomes of repeated FST in women with recurrent EC. This is a retrospective single-center study that recruited patients who had uterine recurrence after achieving a complete response (CR) with FST for FIGO stage IA, well-differentiated (G1), endometrioid EC. All eligible women underwent a second FST. Among 26 patients with recurrence, 6 decided to receive a hysterectomy and 20 received fertility-sparing retreatment. In total, 17 out of 20 women (85%) achieved a CR in a median time of 6 months. A total of 2/20 women showed a stable disease and continued the treatment for a further 6 months and finally achieved a CR. In total, 1/20 women showed disease progression and underwent demolitive surgery. After relapse and a CR, 14 patients attempted to become pregnant, among whom 7 became pregnant (pregnancy rate 50%—life birth rate 29%). Secondary FST is a safe and effective option for women who desire to preserve fertility after the recurrence of early-stage EC.

Keywords

• endometrial cancer
• fertility-sparing treatment
• recurrence
• retreatment