Carcinosarcomas of the uterus (womb) are uncommon cancers accounting for 4% of all cancers of the womb.These uncommon cancers have poor prognosis, one of the reasons for the poor survival outcome is the fact that over a third of these cancers (carcinosarcomas) have already spread beyond the womb at the time of diagnosis.
The main treatment is surgery to remove the cancer, however, because of the high rates of both local and distant recurrence after surgery, effective adjuvant therapies are needed. This review has shown that women with high stage disease (stage III-IV persistent or recurrent disease) who received combination chemotherapy with ifosfamide and paclitaxel had lower risk of death and disease progression than women who received ifosfamide alone, after adjustment for performance status.
In addition radiotherapy to the abdomen was not associated with improved survival, as we found in one trial that there was no difference in the risk of death and disease progression in women who received whole abdominal irradiation and chemotherapy, after adjustment for age and stage of disease. Previous studies have shown that doxorubicin despite being established in the treatment of uterine carcinoma, does not seem to be highly effective.
Adverse events were comprehensively reported and showed that more women experienced side effects when they received combination therapy than ifosamide alone and more women experienced side effects when they received chemotherapy than whole body irradiation. The degree to which these treatments affect patients' quality of life remains unknown as quality of life measures were not reported in any of the trials.