ABSTRACT
Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer. Nearly 80% of the estimated 40 000 patients per year diagnosed with endometrial cancer present with disease confined to the uterus, and have an excellent prognosis.1 Despite this, advanced and recurrent disease account for an estimated 7400 deaths per year, making endometrial cancer the eighth leading cause of cancer death in woman. In 2001, the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) convened an expert panel to develop a national 5-year plan for research priorities in gynecologic cancers.The resulting report, Priorities of the Gynecologic Cancer Progress Review Group (PRG),2 specified that understanding tumor biology was the central key toward controlling gynecologic cancers. For endometrial cancer, one of the top research priorities defined by the PRG was to identify prognostic and predictive markers for treatment efficacy and toxicity. As we enter a molecular age of cancer therapy, specific factors that distinguish those at risk for recurrence and death, and factors that predict response to therapies, must be defined.
