Survival of patients with untreated cervical carcinoma.

Patients infrequently present with advanced-stage cervical malignancy in the United States, where access to care and aggressive screening, detection, and treatment regimens are the standard. Neglected cancer is more likely in countries with underdeveloped healthcare delivery systems; yet in this new millennium, we foresee not only an aging population with modern medicine able to prolong life expectancy, but also attentive screening regimens even amid the older old. Taking into account common comorbid illness from which patients used to die, informed consent in making a treatment in the robust and frail elderly becomes a new challenge. Recognizing an ever-growing population in today's culture of patient-directed care, clinicians may find patients choosing alternative modalities or simply declining conventional therapies. The difficult dilemma then arises about how to inform a patient most accurately of her prognosis in an untreated condition. In the past, virtually all patients in the United States traditionally received some treatment for cervical cancer on diagnosis; thus, review was made of archival published literature to document survival of patients with untreated cervical cancer.