Symptoms - The main sypmtoms of this cancer - abnormal bleeding - occurs early, a factor leading to early diagnosis. For this reason, the overall cure rate is high, over 70 to 80 percent.

Cause - The cause of endometrial cancer is unknown, but a significant factor seems to be prolonged exposure of the endometrium to the hormone estrogen.

Risk Factors - Menstruating women are exposed to estrogen every month. Thus, women who are at high risk for the disease are sometimes prescribed birth control pills to decrease their production of the hormone. In postmenopausal women, estrogen replacement, a common treatment, greatly increases the risk for endometrial cancer. But this risk can be reduced when progesterone, another hormone, is added to the estrogen. Women who are "on the pill" automatically decrease their risk of developing endometrial cancer, as do those who maintain their ideal body weight.

Also at higher risk are menopausal women who have never been pregnant and those with a history of infertility, failed ovulations, irregular periods (menses), or irregular bleeding.

Prevention - Prevention of endometrial cancer involves maintaining ideal body weight, avoiding unnecessary estrogens and—if at high risk—being screened at menopause for early signs of endometrial changes that might lead to cancer.

Detection - How can endometrial cancer be detected? The standard pelvic exam and the pap smear do not detect it, though a pap smear can suggest an irregularity that needs further testing with an endometrial biopsy, which requires removal of cells lining the endometrium.

Because of the difficulty in detecting this condition, women at high risk - those who have a history of obesity, infertility, abnormal bleeding, or estrogen exposure - should have an endometrial biopsy when they reach menopause.

Treatment Options - Endometrial cancer, like cervical cancer, progresses slowly. And, when diagnosed early, it is curable.  Treatment has changed significantly over the past 50 years.  Before 1970, there was a great deal of debate over the benefits of radiation treatment mainly over which patients should receive radiation and how and when it was to be delivered. Hormonal therapy and chemotherapy are occasionally used for this type of cancer.

Surgery for endometrial cancer became more popular in the early 1970s, and was adopted as the treatment of choice by the International Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians in 1988. As a result, most patients diagnosed with early endometrium cancer now undergo a total abdominal hysterectomy.