Long-term impact of lymphadenectomies in patients with low-grade, early-stage uterine endometrial stroma sarcoma

Aim The aim of our study was to investigate the lymph node metastasis (LNM) rate and effect of lymph node dissection (LND) in patients with stage I, low-grade endometrial stromal sarcoma (LGESS). Methods Patients with stage I LGESS (n = 119) that underwent surgery from July 1969 to July 2017, following up over 48 years at the China National Cancer Center were retrospectively analyzed in this study. Results Surgical records and consulting data for patients with LGESS were analyzed to find that 47 patients received systematic pelvic LND. The number of patients with menopause in the LND(+) group were significantly lower than those in LND(-) group (2.1% vs 22.2%, P = 0.005), meanwhile, patients received bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy procedure in LND(+) group were significantly higher than LND(-) (97.9% vs 58.3%, P < 0.001). Neither progression-free survival nor overall survival was significantly improved in the LND(+) group even after propensity score matching although the progression-free survival has a stronger trend in LND(+) population. Conclusion A systematic LND was not significantly associated with prognosis for patients with early-stage LGESS. There is no sufficient indication for a systematic LND for patients with early-stage LGESS. A systematic LND might be necessary if enlarged lymph nodes were detected by image graphology or observation during surgery.