Patterns of Pretreatment Diagnostic Assessment and Staging for Patients with Cervical Cancer (1999–2001): Patterns of Care Study in Japan*

Objective: To evaluate the patterns of pretreatment diagnostic assessment in uterine cervical cancer patients treated with definitive radiotherapy in Japan. Methods: The Japanese Patterns of Care Study working group conducted a second extra-mural audit survey of 68 institutions and collected specific information on 631 patients with cervical cancer. All patients were treated with radiotherapy in 1999–2001. Of these, 324 patients treated without surgery were the subjects of this study. Results: International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics-prescribed diagnostic pro-cedures were performed at moderate rates in our study cohort. The performance rates of chest X-ray, intravenous urography, cystoscopy, and proctoscopy were 74, 54, 53, and 33%, respectively. Cross sectional imaging studies were frequently performed. Pelvic CT, abdomi-nal CT, and pelvic MRI were performed in 88, 80, and 76%, respectively. Lymphangiography (1%) and surgical evaluation (1%) were rarely done. Only one patient underwent PET scans in this survey period. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the patterns of pretreatment diagnostic assessment in cervical cancer patients treated with definitive radiotherapy in Japan. Key words: cervix neoplasm – radiotherapy – patterns of care – FIG