Metastatic Endometrial Cancer

Last Modified: February 16, 2005

Dear OncoLink "Ask The Experts,"
My mother was diagnosed with Endometrial Cancer in 1993. She underwent surgery and went in remission. In 1998, they discovered that it had metastasized to her lungs and she was treated by chemotherapy. After chemo, she developed diabetes, and CHF. She was in remission until November 2003. A CT Scan then showed several small nodules in her lungs. I am interested in finding out what options she may have now. What other options might she have such as radiofrequency ablation or hormone therapies etc.? Are there any new clinical trials? Any ideas and/or suggestions that you can give us will be most helpful.

Christina S. Chu, MD, Assistant Professor of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, responds:

Hormonal therapy may be a good option for your mother. Side effects are generally minimal, though the response rate is low (about 10%). However, given that your mother's initial diagnosis was in 1993, this seems to be a very slow growing tumor. The hormonal option may be especially good, given the multiple medical problems she had with chemotherapy. The option with the most chance of response is additional chemotherapy, of course. Taxol and carboplatin chemotherapy is only one of several choices, that is generally well tolerated. Given that your mother had such a good response to her initial chemotherapy with a 5 year remission, I would urge you to discuss this with your oncologist.

I am unaware that radiofrequency ablation may be used to treat multiple lung metastases. Likewise, I am unaware of any chemotherapy or other treatments that will only selectively treat the lungs without affecting other parts of the body. You may visit the OncoLink Clinical Trials section to see if your mother may be eligible for any currently open clinical trials.