Serous papillary carcinoma of the endometrium. A clinicopathologic study of 11 cases.

Abstract

We review 11 cases of serous papillary endometrial carcinoma (SPEC) that are histologically identical to serous ovarian carcinoma. Six patients (55%) had extrauterine involvement at the time of presentation; five of these six died secondary to malignancy and one died of other causes. The remaining five patients presented with tumor confined to the uterine corpus and cervix. One of these developed a vaginal recurrence, one died of other causes without evidence of tumor, and three are alive without disease at 15 months, 18 months, and 13 years. SPEC is a biologically aggressive variant of endometrial carcinoma because it often presents at an advanced clinical stage with an associated high mortality rate.