Advances in Treatment for Endometrial Cancer

Researchers are always looking for new ways to treat endometrial cancer. They may also try new combinations of older treatments. Researchers also look back at health records to find patterns of the treatments that seemed to work best. Here are some recent advances.

• Taking out lymph nodes during hysterectomy helps guide the choices for treatment. And this means better survival rates in women whose endometrial cancer has spread.

• Gynecologists and gynecologic oncologists have recently published guidelines for treatment of advanced endometrial cancer, which means it has spread.

• Radiation of the pelvic area has serious side effects. But it works well for many women with advanced cancer.

• New combinations of chemotherapy drugs give effective treatment with fewer side effects than drugs used in the past.

• There are differences in the makeup of endometrial tumors in African-American and Caucasian women. This may help researchers know why endometrial cancer is more common in Caucasian women but more deadly to African-American women.