Endometrial cancer in patients after previous neoplastic disease - clinical and molecular aspects

Objectives: Analysis of clinical and molecular parameters in endometrial cancer (EC) patients, operated on between 2000-2010 at the Department of Gynecology, Gynecologic Oncology and Gynecologic Endocrinology (Medical University of Gdansk), in whom EC developed as another tumor after previously diagnosed neoplastic disease. We compared patients with EC developing as primary and secondary disease. Material and methods: The material consisted of 456 tumor fragments collected from EC patients. An attempt has been made to assess the possible molecular distinction between primary and secondary EC. Results: A relationship between specific clinical parameters (obesity, clinical stage) was observed but the groups did not differ at the molecular level. Conclusions: Although it might seem that malignant tumors developing in patients who had already been treated for cancer should be characterized by molecular dissimilarity, no such relationship was detected in our study. At the same time, EC developing as a secondary disease was clinically characterized by a more aggressive behavior, i.e. more advanced stages at diagnosis, higher likelihood of metastases, and a shorter survival time.