Endometrial carcinoma and its precursors: detection and screening.

This article summarizes the current status of an endometrial cancer detection program in asymptomatic women based on personal experience with 2007 examinees seen during 1979 and 1980. This ongoing feasibility study has shown that occult endometrial carcinoma occurs in approximately 5 of 1000 women age 45 and above and that the disease can be identified by the sampling techniques described in this paper. The identification of high-risk groups is emerging from this prospective study and may lead to a cost-efficient detection protocol that may prove applicable to large scale population screening. The benefits of this study in terms of lowered morbidity and mortality from endometrial carcinoma cannot be documented as yet and require several additional years of follow-up. Perhaps the principal benefit of this study is that it has provided prevalence data for endometrial carcinoma in a hitherto unscreened asymptomatic population against which all future efforts at endometrial cancer detection will have to be measured.