Comparison of clinical and surgical-pathologic staging in patients with endometrial carcinoma

In that accurate staging is essential to proper management of patients with endometrium cancer, preoperative clinical staging was compared with surgical‐pathological staging in 160 patients with endometrium cancer. One hundred fifty‐two patients had clinical stage I, and eight had clinical stage II disease. Overall, the clinical stage was changed in 26.9% of patients. The incidence of inaccurate staging was 25% for clinical stage I and 62.5% for clinical stage II disease. Endocervical curettage was found to have a 12.5% false‐positive rate and an 8.6% false‐negative rate. The extent of malignant disease for endometrium cancer (clinical stages I‐II) cannot be adequately and accurately assessed with clinical staging because there is a high rate of discordance between clinical and surgical‐pathologic staging.