General Medical Information

Recurrent Cervical Cancer

There is no standard treatment of recurrent cervical cancer that has spread beyond the confines of a radiation or surgical field. All such patients are appropriate candidates for clinical trials testing drug combinations or new anticancer agents. For locally recurrent disease, pelvic exenteration can lead to a 5-year survival rate of 32% to 62% in selected patients.

Standard treatment options:

1. For recurrence in the pelvis following radical surgery, radiation in combination with chemotherapy (fluorouracil with or without mitomycin) may cure 40% to 50% of patients.

2. Chemotherapy can be used for palliation. Tested drugs include:

cisplatin (15%-25% response rate)
ifosfamide (15%-30% response rate)
ifosfamide-cisplatin
paclitaxel (17% response rate)
irinotecan (21% response rate in patients previously treated with chemotherapy)
paclitaxel/cisplatin (46% response rate)
cisplatin/gemcitabine (41% response rate)