The treatment plan that’s best for you will depend on several factors, including your general health, your cancer’s stage and grade, and any unique genetic mutation that may be present. While surgery is often the primary (first) treatment for uterine cancer, many patients also have radiation therapy, hormone therapy, and chemotherapy or immunotherapy drugs.
Because your plan will likely involve more than one type of therapy, you’ll need the expertise of physicians from different specialty areas, such as gynecologic oncology, radiation oncology, pathology, diagnostic radiology and more.
Only at Roswell Park will you find all these specialists together under one roof, where they collaborate every day to consider every possible treatment option and determine the best plan for you.
Although uterine cancer mostly affects women after menopause, it can develop in young adults, too. For premenopausal women who still hope to have children, our team will consider whether fertility-sparing treatment is an option for you. Some women with early, low-risk endometrial cancer may be eligible for this approach, which uses hormone therapy first and aims to delay removing the uterus so that a patient can try to conceive and bear a child first.
Your treatment may include one or more of the following approaches:
- Surgery to remove the uterus, cervix and other tissues affected by the cancer.
- Radiation therapy to shrink tumors before surgery, kill cancer cells after surgery, prevent recurrence or relieve symptoms.
- Chemotherapy to kill cancer cells in the body before or after surgery.
- Hormone therapy to slow or stop tumor growth in tumors that are fueled by certain hormones.
- Targeted therapy to attack cancer cells by interfering with certain proteins or enzymes that the cancer cells need to grow.
- Immunotherapy to boost your own immune system to fight the cancer.
- Fertility sparing treatment which uses hormone therapy first, allowing time for childbearing before undergoing curative surgery.
- Clinical trials to access the very latest options.