Cervical carcinoma can be adequately treated when diagnosed in early stage. However, the progsnosis of recurrent cervical carcinoma remains poor. The objective of this study is to analyze the prognostic factors affecting survial of recurrent cervical carcinoma patients.

The clinical characteristics of eighty-three patients who were diagnosed as recurrent cervical carcinoma from Jan 1988 to Apr 1999 were retrospecively analyzed, The initial FIGO stage of II (67.5%) was the most predominant. There were 9.6% of adenocarcinoma, 9.6% of adenosquamous carcinoma, and 1.2% of small cell carcinoma other than squamous cell carcinoma (77.1%). Diagnosis of recurrence was made by histopathologic examination, CT/MRI, Chest X-ray, intravenous pyelography. The recurrence was detected on routine follow-up in 41.0%. Comparison of Kaplan-Meyer survival curve was made with log-rank test, P-value less than 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant.

Overall 2-year survival rate was 37.3% and median survival was 17 [13-21, 95%CI] months. Four patients survived more than 5 years. There was no significant difference among survival rates of histopathologic types, Survival rates of patients with central recurrence were significantly higher than those of lateral and distant recurrence (P= 0.009). 13 patients who did not receive any treatment after recurrence survived only for 9 [7-11] months and the survival of those were significantly lower than the survival of patients who received treatment of any kind (P<0.001). The treatment modalities after recurrence did not affect survival.

We conclude that regular follow-up of cervical carcinoma patients is very important in detecting recurrence and that treatment after recurrence does affect survival of patients.