Abstract:

Objective: Endometrial stromal sarcoma (ESS) is a rare mesenchymal tumor of the uterus.Literature has limited data about the ESS. The aim of the present study was to contribute to literature by reporting the histo-pathological findings, clinical characteristics of ESS patients and the data about the accuracy of preoperative diagnosis and prognosis. Material and Methods: A total of 33 patients who were diagnosed and followed up with ESS at Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics of Bursa Uludağ University between 2007 and 2017 were retrospectively analyzed with regard to clinical and pathologic characteristics, surgical procedures they underwent and survival. Results: Mean age of the patients was 49.5 years and 60.2 years for low grade ESS (LG-ESS) and high grade ESS (HG-ESS) (p=0,01). Post-menopausal hemorrhage was the most common complaint on admission.  Correct histological diagnosis was made in only 72.7% of the patients from whom pre-operative endometrial biopsy was obtained. Twelve out of 16 cases (75%) were in Stage 1. While all patients underwent total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (TAH+BSO), 14 underwent pelvic and para-aortic lymphadenectomy for surgical staging. Lymph node involvement was detected in no patients who underwent lymphadenectomy. The patients with LG-ESS were found to have a good prognosis however the ones with HG-ESS had a high mortality rate even in the early stages (mean survival of 10 months). Conclusion: High grade ESS cases show different clinical characteristics and prognosis than LG-HSS. Diagnostic accuracy of endometrial sampling is much lower when compared to epithelial uterine malignancies. Metastasis of pelvic-paraaortic lymph nodes of which removal is reported which not to contribute to survival is rare.

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