Thickness of uninvolved fibromuscular stroma and extrauterine spread of carcinoma of the uterine cervix

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Abstract
The minimum thickness of cervical fibromuscular stroma remaining uninvolved with invasive cervical carcinoma was examined in relation to pelvic node metastases and 5-year cancer death rate, using specimens from Stage IB, IIA, and IIB patients who underwent radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy. The nodal metastasis and 5-year cancer death rates were 7% and 8%, respectively, in patients with the uninvolved fibromuscular stroma thickness above 3 mm, and 37% and 26%, respectively, in patients with the thickness below 3 mm. The thickness of cancer-unaffected cervical fibromuscular stroma seemed to be closely related to and to be a more useful parameter of the biological behavior of invasive cervical carcinoma than the depth of the cancer invasion. A threshold value of the minimum thickness of the tissue as a barrier against extrauterine spread of cervical cancer could not be identified in this study.