Background: Despite the increasing advances in the prevention and treatment of cervical cancer, there is still morbidity and mortality caused by the disease specially in developing countries, where data regarding the prognostic factors are scarce.
Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic factors associated with overall survival of patients with cervical cancer treated at the Brazilian National Cancer Institute.
Methods: Medical records of patients diagnosed with cervical cancer between 2006 and 2009 were retrospectively analyzed including: age, ethnicity, marital status, FIGO stage, performance status, hemoglobin level, histology, comorbidities, tumor differentiation, occupation and type of treatment. Clinical and epidemiological characteristics collected were compared using the chi-squared test. For the survival analysis the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were employed. Cox regression was performed to identify prognostic factors associated with survival, considering a confidence interval of 95%. The p-value <0.05 was considered significant.
Results: 1482 records were analyzed. Cox model associated a worse prognosis for women with locally advanced disease (p<0.001) or distant metastasis (p<0.001), performance status 2-4 (p <0.001), hemoglobin levels at the beginning of treatment <12g/dL (p<0.001), >1 comorbidity (p = 0.04) and absence of lymphadenectomy (p<0.04). Age, race, marital status, tumor differentiation and surgical treatment were not significantly associated with overall survival.
Conclusions: The independent prognostic factors for overall survival were FIGO stage, performance status, hemoglobin levels lower than 12g/dL, the presence of comorbidities and the absence of lymphadenectomy.