Objective: In the studies of locally advanced cervical carcinoma
(LACC), the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) after curative concurrent
chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) has not been clearly investigated. This paper aimed to
evaluate the impact of CCRT followed by ACT compared with the impact of CCRT
alone in the treatment of LACC. Data sources, methods of study
selection: The Web of Science, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and PubMed were
systematically reviewed to find eligible studies up to 28 February 2020. The
pooled analysis was conducted through random- or fixed-effect models. Clinical
endpoints such as overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), local
failure rate (LFR), distant metastasis (DM), as well as adverse events (AEs) were
examined as evaluation indexes. Tabulation, integration and results:
Three retrospective studies and two randomized trials were enrolled in this
meta-analysis comprising 1172 patients (CCRT arm: 588; CCRT + ACT arm: 584). No
significant differences were discovered in OS (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.94, 95%
confidence interval [CI]: 0.46, 1.94, p = 0.88) and PFS (HR = 0.91, 95%
CI: 0.50, 1.67, p = 0.76) between CCRT followed by ACT and CCRT alone.
The pooled RRs for LFR (RR = 0.64, 95% CI: 0.44, 0.92, p = 0.02) and DM
(RR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.35, 0.71, p
