Dr. Ross on the Unmet Needs in Uterine Carcinosarcoma

Malcolm Ross, MD, University of Pittsburgh, discusses unmet needs for patients with uterine carcinosarcoma.

Uterine carcinosarcoma is an endometrial cancer that physicians are beginning to better understand, says Ross. It was initially classified as a sarcoma but recent genetic understanding of the disease has helped reclassify it as an epithelial endometrial cancer. This reclassification has changed the way physicians look at prognosis and staging. However, this has not changed how physicians treat it.

Uterine carcinosarcoma is that it is rare, explains Ross. It represents 5% of total uterine cancers but accounts for 15% of all deaths from uterine cancer. With such a rare cancer, it is hard to study it prospectively and can often get included with other higher-risk endometrial cancers. A lot of the data regarding it is mostly retrospective.