Multimodal treatment for glassy cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix

Abstract

Glassy cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix is a rare form of cervical cancer that is characterized by aggressiveness and poor prognosis because of its rapid growth, its frequent distant metastases, and its relative resistance to conventional treatment modalities including surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. We report here a case of glassy cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix that was successfully treated with radical surgery followed by radiation therapy and combination chemotherapy with paclitaxel and carboplatin. A 30-year-old primigravid Japanese woman was admitted to our hospital to be treated for stage IIb uterine cervical cancer. She was treated with radical hysterectomy with pelvic and paraaortic lymphadenectomy. The pathological diagnosis of the surgical specimen was glassy cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix with metastases to the right obturator lymph nodes and left external iliac lymph nodes. The surgical staging of the disease was pT2b, pN1, and pM0. Subsequently, she was treated using conventional radiation therapy (50Gy by whole pelvic radiation) and six courses of tri-weekly chemotherapy with paclitaxel (180 mg/m(2)) and carboplatin (area under the curve of 6.0 mg min/mL calculated using the Calvert formula). The patient is alive, without evidence of recurrence, 30 months following the surgery. It is suggested that multimodal therapy with radical surgery, radiation, and combined chemotherapy should be used to treat glassy cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix. Our multimodal treatment protocol may be one of the treatment options for this aggressive disease.