The patterns of care study for carcinoma of the uterine cervix treated with radiotherapy and without surgery

Patterns of Care Study (PCS) is one of the quality assurance programs, which is widely known in the USA. We investigated the patient characteristics, practice patterns and prognostic factor in Japan for patients with cervical cancer by Japanese PCS in 1995-1997. Five hundred and ninety-two patients in 79 institutions treated with radiotherapy and without surgery were analyzed in this study. Almost all of patients were treated with high dose rate brachytherapy, but in the USA it had not been in routine use for treating cervical cancer patients. One of the important prognostic factors associated with improved overall survival rate was the use of intracavitary irradiation. (author)