Sun H, et al. - For stage IA/IIB cervical cancer patients with intermediate risk factors, postoperative cisplatin concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) was compared with radiation therapy (RT) alone in terms of outcome improvement. Furthermore, the potential eligible populations for CCRT were also identified. Improved survival was reported in the patients who received postoperative CCRT. Moreover, CCRT may be beneficial for patients with 2 or more intermediate risk factors, including lymphovascular space invasion.

• Medical records of 1,240 patients with stage IA/IIB cervical cancer who underwent radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy in researchers' hospital between January 2008 and December 2011, were reviewed.
• One or more intermediate risk factors were shown by 436 of the 1,240 patients.
• Of these, screening was performed in 306 patients who underwent RT only or CCRT.
• Researchers analyzed the impacts of CCRT on survival and prognosis.

• For the CCRT group vs the RT-only group, a superior 5-year progress-free survival (PFS) was reported (96.0% vs 89.0%, respectively; P=0.031).
• The 2 groups (P=0.141) did not differ in terms of 5-year overall survivals (OSs).
• CCRT in patients with 1 risk factor, large tumor size, or deep stromal invasion (P>0.05) resulted in no improvement in PFS or OS, compared with RT-only group.
• Improved PFS (97.9% vs 82.8%; P=0.017) but no increase in OS (97.9% vs 89.7%; P=0.109) resulted from CCRT in patients with lymphovascular space invasion plus deep stromal invasion/large tumor size, compared with RT-only group.
• Findings demonstrated that OS (92.3% vs 70.6%; P=0.048) and PFS (92.3% vs 64.7%; P=0.020) in the CCRT group were superior to those in the RT-only group with 3 risk factors.
• In addition, CCRT was identified to be an independent prognostic factor for favorable PFS (hazard ratio [HR] =0.238; 95% CI =0.0827–0.697, P=0.009) and OS (HR =0.192; 95% CI =0.069–0.533, P=0.002), compared with RT-only group.