A hospital-based multicentric study results on gestational trophoblastic disease management status in a developing country

Objective: To determine the clinical management of gestational trophoblastic disease in Turkey. Material and Methods: An inquiry form was sent to 55 health centers including unversity hospitals, maternity hospitals with residency programs and maternity hospitals without residency programs in 1997. The inquiry consisted of questions about the type of classification systems in use, distribution of cases according to those classifications, use of prophylactic chemotherapy and its indications, and drug preference for single-agent or combined chemotherapies. Results: The overall response rate to the conducted inquiry was 47.1%. A clinical classification system was identified in 60% of the hospitals in Turkey. Generally, methotrexate was the most used single-agent chemotherapy. With regard to first-line combined chemotherapy, MAC (methotrexate, antinomycin-D, cyclophosphamide) was the preferred combination. EMA-CO (etoposide, methotrexate, actinomycin-D, cyclophosphamide, vincristine) was the most common used second-line chemotherapeutic regimen. Conclusion: Due to insufficient data acquisition from all the medical centers and a lack of national population-based studies, it is difficult to draw a conclusion with respect to the interpretation of the data about the management protocols of gestational trophoblastic disease.