Perioperative and postoperative complications of intracavitary radiation for FIGO stage I-III carcinoma of the cervix

Purpose: To evaluate perioperative and postoperative complications of low-dose-rate (LDR) intracavitary radiation therapy in patients with FIGO Stage I–III carcinoma of the uterine cervix.

Methods and Materials: We retrospectively reviewed the medical and radiotherapy records of all patients treated with radiation between 1960 and 1992 at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for FIGO I–III carcinomas of the cervix. Patients who had had initial hysterectomy or whose treatment did not include intracavitary irradiation were excluded. The final study included 4043 patients who had undergone 7662 intracavitary procedures.

Results: Eleven (0.3%) patients had documented or suspected cases of thromboembolism resulting in 4 deaths. Of these 11 patients, 8 had clinical or radiographic evidence of tumor involving pelvic nodes or fixed pelvic wall. The risk of postoperative thromboembolism did not decrease significantly with the routine use of mini-dose heparin prophylaxis (p = 0.3). Other life-threatening perioperative complications included myocardial infarction (1 death in 5 patients), cerebrovascular accident (2 patients), congestive heart failure or atrial fibrillation (3 patients), and halothane liver toxicity (2 deaths in 2 patients). Intraoperative complications included uterine perforation (2.8%) and vaginal laceration (0.3%), which occurred more frequently in patients ≥ 60 years old (p < 0.01). Fourteen percent of patients had a temperature ≥ 101°F during at least one hospital stay. The only correlation between minor intraoperative complications and disease-specific survival was found in patients who had Stage III disease and uterine perforation; survival was significantly (p = 0.01) decreased in these patients.

Conclusions: Fatal or life-threatening complications of intracavitary treatment were very rare. Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) did not occur in otherwise healthy patients with early disease and were rare even when disease was more advanced. Minor perioperative complications were not correlated with serious late complications or with death from disease.