cancer of the body of the uterus
Last edited 05/2019 and last reviewed 04/2023
Endometrial carcinoma is the most common gynaecological cancer in the developed world.
- carcinoma of the endometrium is responsible for around 92% of the cancers of the uterine corpus (the remainder being uterine carcinosarcomas and sarcomas)
- it is predominantly a disease of post-menopausal women which makes up around 90% of all women diagnosed as having endometrial carcinoma
- mean age at diagnosis is around 63 years
Endometrial carcinoma can be divided histopathologically into 2 major types:
- type 1 cancers
- account for 80-90% of endometrial carcinomas
- usually oestrogen dependent endometrioid adenocarcinomas
- generally have a good prognosis.
- type 2 tumours
- usually present late and are more aggressive
- carry a poor prognosis
- not oestrogen driven
- risk of relapse and metastasis is high
- commonest histological types are uterine papillary serous carcinoma and
clear cell carcinoma
- are around 9,100 new uterine cancer cases in the UK every year, that's 25
every day (2013-2015)
- in females in the UK, uterine cancer is the 4th most common cancer, with
around 9,000 new cases in 2015
- uterine cancer accounts for 5% of all new cancer cases in females in the
UK (2015). Incidence rates for uterine cancer in the UK are highest in females
aged 75 to 79 (2013-2015)
- since the early 1990s, uterine cancer incidence rates have increased by
almost three-fifths (56%) in females in the UK
- over the last decade, uterine cancer incidence rates have increased by around
a fifth (21%) in females in the UK
- most uterine cancers occur in the endometrium
- uterine cancer incidence in England is not associated with deprivation
- uterine cancer is as common in White, Asian and Black females
- an estimated 70,200 women who had previously been diagnosed with uterine cancer were alive in the UK at the end of 2010
The overall prognosis is relatively good as most cases are caught early following investigation for post-menopausal bleeding. Nulliparous women and those of low parity seem to be affected most frequently
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