what are the treatment options?

When thinking about your treatment, your doctors will take into account:

• whether the cancer has grown into the muscle wall – and if so, how much
• whether the cancer has already spread to other body organs, and if so, which
• your general health
• your wishes.

Your doctors will tell you about the risks, benefits and side effects of the treatments being offered, and how they may affect your life afterwards.

You will then need to agree to the treatment before it can start. This is called giving your consent. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if there is anything you don’t understand.

The treatments you may be offered are:

Surgery
This means an operation to remove the cancer.

Your doctor is likely to recommend that you have a total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. The surgeon will take out your uterus, both ovaries and the fallopian tubes. Occasionally they may also need to remove lymph glands and, rarely, also take out a layer of tissue called the omentum.

Most women with cancer of the uterus have already had their menopause. If you are younger, the surgery will mean that you will not be able to have children, and your menopause will begin.

Radiotherapy

If your cancer is at an early stage, surgery will be the only treatment you need.

Some patients, however, have radiotherapy after surgery, to help reduce the chance of the disease coming back. Radiotherapy uses radiation to kill cancer cells.

Sometimes a patient may not be able to have surgery. The doctor may offer radiotherapy as an alternative, to try to cure the cancer.

Radiotherapy can also help women whose cancer can’t be cured. It may control the disease for a time, relieve symptoms and make patients feel better.

Radiation can be given from inside or outside the body. You may have either type of treatment, or both.

When given from outside the body it is called

external beam

radiotherapy

, and a machine directs high energy x-rays at the cancer.

Another way of giving radiotherapy is from the inside of the body. There are different ways of doing this - for example a Selectron or a Microselectron machine may be used to give the radiotherapy through the vagina (front passage). Your doctor will tell you more about this.

Hormone therapy
Hormone therapy can’t cure cancer of the uterus but it may keep it under control, often for quite a long time.

Your doctor may recommend this treatment if...

• you’re not well enough for surgery or radiotherapy, or
• your cancer keeps coming back, or
• your cancer has spread to other parts of the body.

Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses special drugs to kill cancer cells. Your doctor may suggest this treatment if your cancer keeps coming back, or if it has spread to other parts of the body and hasn’t been controlled by hormone therapy or radiotherapy.

For more information about treatments, go to our cancer treatments section.