Recurrent and persistent squamous cell cervical carcinoma in women under age 35

Forty-five patients with invasive cervical squamous cell carcinoma were registered in the Tom Baker Cancer Centre from 1980 to 1985. The natural history of 22 patients (48.9%) who developed persistent or recurrent disease including 11 Stage IB, 8 Stage IIB, and 3 Stage IIIB is reported. Only one patient who had the uncommon papillary variant is alive without evidence of residual disease. The remainder are either dead (16) or alive with residual disease (5). Four patients never achieved a disease-free status and in the remainder recurrences developed on average in 8.7 months. Central or regional disease was not controlled in 20 of 22 patients. Neither radical surgery nor radiotherapy was evidently more effective in preventing persistent or recurrent disease. A reliable predictive marker for persistent or recurrent disease is required: lymph-vascular invasion in the radical hysterectomy specimens was present in 5 of 6 cases but it is subject to interpretive error. Since the disease is frequently systemic at the time of diagnosis, early adjuvant therapy and improved staging techniques are required to improve the survival.