Uterine cancer is typically what we call surgically staged. That means that the female parts, the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the uterus and the cervix are all removed in a surgery. This is done either through an open incision on the abdomen or sometimes laparoscopically or robotically, which is the newest generation of minimally invasive surgery. We understand what's going on in that specimen. Sometimes we check lymph nodes to assess the risk of those lymph nodes being involved with cancers. Ultimately we try to put together a complete picture of the patient's disease status so that we can figure out if any addition treatment is needed.
Sometimes there's additional treatment after surgery is done. This is called therapy. The question that we have is based on what we found at the time of surgery, is there any way that we can reduce the risk of this cancer coming back? Sometimes it means we don't have to do anything at all. Sometimes there's use of chemotherapy or radiation or sometimes both to make the problem ... Or to reduce the risk of it coming back in the future.
