Recent Advances in the Management of Small Cell Carcinoma of the Uterine Cervix

Background/Aim: Small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the cervix (SCNEC) is a rare disease characterized by a higher incidence of lymphatic invasion, metastasis, and recurrence compared to the squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma subtypes. Furthermore, it is prone to early distant metastasis and has a poor prognosis. Chemotherapy has an important role in the management of cervical SCNEC. The effective treatment schemes for early-stage SCNEC are local treatment with radical surgery and systemic chemotherapy. However no standard treatment regimen exists because of a rare disease. We reviewed previous reports to determine whether etoposide/platinum, which is used for histopathologically similar small cell carcinoma of the lung, is an appropriate initial chemotherapy regimen for SCNEC of the cervix. Materials and Methods: In this review the Cochrane library sources, Clinical Trials.gov, Web of Silence, PubMed and search engine of Google scholar were searched for all interventional studies, reviews, case reports and meta-analyses published in 1997-2021. Results: Etoposide/platinum (EP) is the most commonly used regimen and paclitaxel/carboplatin is the second most common, used as a part of multimodality therapy for SCNEC of the cervix in most studies. Cisplatin/vincristine/bleomycin, cisplatin/ irinotecan, cisplatin/ifosfamide/etoposide were also reported in concurrence with EP; however no clinical trials are dedicated to SCNEC.