Revised FIGO staging systems for gynecologic malignancies – 2009 update

Abstract

Abstract Neoplasm staging system was created to facilitate making diagnoses and planning treatment for cancer patients. Since medical research and practice in the field of oncology have shown explosive growth, the staging of some of the gynecologic cancers did not give a good spread of prognostic groupings. In the light of these breakthroughs, the following changes to the staging of gynecological cancers were proposed and approved by the FIGO Committee. In vulvar cancer Stage IA remained unchanged but Stage I and II have been combined. The number and morphology of the involved nodes have been taken into account, and the bilaterality of positive nodes has been discounted. In cervical cancer Stage 0 has been deleted and substages in Stage IIA have been included. In endometrial cancer Stage IA and IB have been combined so that now Stage IA involves the endometrium and/or less than one-half myometrial invasion and IB is equal to or greater than the outer one-half of the myometrium. Stage II no longer has a subset A and B. Involvement in the endocervical glandular portion of the cervix is now considered Stage I. Pelvic and para-aortic node involvement have been separated. The committee has also established a sarcoma staging system based on the criteria used in other soft tissue sarcomas.