A systematic review and meta-analysis of adjuvant chemotherapy after chemoradiation for locally advanced cervical cancer

We investigated whether the addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to chemoradiation improves overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis. Systematic searches in the databases of PubMed, Embase and Web of Science yielded 881 articles. Two reviewer authors independently selected 31 articles for full text review and deemed eight studies eligible for inclusion. Two were randomised controlled trials (RCT), one was a large (n = 609) matched-case study and the remaining were small retrospective cohort studies; in total 2150 patients. Risk of bias assessment showed that the RCTs were at low risk and all other studies were at high risk of bias. Pooled hazard ratios for OS and PFS were 0.78 (95%CI 0.45–1.33, p = 0.36) and 0.85 (95%CI 0.65–1.10, p = 0.22), respectively. Analysis stratified by study design and sensitivity analysis showed similar results. Funnel plots showed significant publication bias due to a lack of small studies with negative outcomes.