Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer: A survival study

CONTEXT: Patients with advanced ovarian cancer have a poor prognosis in spite of the best possible care. Primary debulking surgery has been the standard of care in advanced ovarian cancer; however, it is associated with high mortality and morbidity rates as shown in various studies. Several studies have discussed the benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with advanced ovarian cancer. AIMS: This study aims to evaluate the survival statistics of the patients who have been managed with interval debulking surgery (IDS) from January 2007 to December 2009. MATERIALS AND METHODS: During the period from January 2007 to December 2009, a retrospective analysis of 104 patients who underwent IDS for stage IIIC or IV advanced epithelial ovarian cancer at our institute were selected for the study. IDS was attempted after three to five courses of chemotherapy with paclitaxal (175 mg/m(2) ) and carboplatin (5-6 of area under curve). Overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS) were compared with results of primary debulking study from existing literature. OS and PFS rates were estimated by means of the Kaplan-Meier method. Results were statistically analyzed by IBM SPSS Statistics 19. RESULTS: The median OS was 26 months and the median PFS was 18 months. In multivariate analysis it was found that both OS and PFS was affected by the stage, and extent of debulking. CONCLUSIONS: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy, followed by surgical cytoreduction is a promising treatment strategy for the management of advanced epithelial ovarian cancers.