Medical therapy of endometrial cancer: current status and promising novel treatments.

While early-stage endometrial cancer is often successfully treated with surgical intervention, treatment of advanced endometrial carcinoma can be difficult and prognosis poor, particularly in the context of metastatic or recurrent disease. Standard chemotherapy agents for both adjuvant first-line treatment (for selected patients deemed at high risk of relapse) and recurrent endometrial cancer include doxorubicin, platinum agents and paclitaxel. Investigational options currently being studied in phase II trials include both combined regimens of standard chemotherapeutic agents versus radiation as well as targeted treatments such as epothilones, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors and anti-angiogenic agents. Recent interest in the molecular pathways of carcinogenesis have lead to increased investigation of these novel agents and the hope that they will impact positively on the overall survival of women with endometrial cancer.