Issues

The cover image is adapted from Figure 1 in the article, “Mortality patterns of synchronous uterine and ovarian cancers: a SEER registry analysis,” by Dood and colleagues. Figure 1 shows the distribution of histologies for synchronous uterine and ovarian cancers. The degree to which uterine cancer metastatic to the ovary is misdiagnosed as synchronous stage I uterine and ovarian cancers is unclear. The goal of this study was to investigate the potential misdiagnosis of patients with an aggressive, metastatic stage IIIA uterine cancer as a synchronous stage I uterine and stage I ovarian cancer on a population level. The authors hypothesized that if such misdiagnosis was common among patients diagnosed with synchronous stage I uterine and ovarian tumors, they would have higher mortality than those with non-synchronous stage I uterine or stage I ovarian cancers, and mortality closer to that of patients with stage IIIA uterine cancers, after accounting for various patient and tumor characteristics. The authors observed lower mortality for synchronous stage I uterine and ovarian cancers, which was not explained by younger age, earlier stage, lower grade, histology type, or adjuvant therapy. The possible misdiagnosis associated with clinicopathologic of synchronous uterine and ovarian cancers does not appear to worsen survival on a population level. For more information, see the article beginning on page 2038.