Feasibility of neoadjuvant and adjuvant intraperitoneal chemotherapy in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer: A single-center experience

Intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy is believed to prolong the survival of patients with advanced ovarian cancer after primary debulking surgery. However, there is little knowledge about IP chemotherapy in the setting of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and there are contradictory conclusions about adjuvant IP chemotherapy. Here, we evaluated the feasibility of neoadjuvant and adjuvant IP chemotherapy in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (AEOC). We retrospectively reviewed the data of 114 patients with AEOC who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by laparoscopic conservative interval debulking surgery (NACT + LIDS) in our institution from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2017. The median overall survival (OS) was 56 months and the median disease-free interval (DFI) was 14 months for the entire study population. Neoadjuvant IP chemotherapy cycles were crucial for the treatment of no gross residual (R0) disease (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.446, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.245–0.811), which was independently associated with OS of the entire study population (HR = 9.589, 95% CI = 3.911–23.507). In addition, residual disease and body mass index (BMI) were the prognostic factors for DFI (HR = 6.022, 95% CI = 3.632–9.986; HR = 1.085, 95% CI = 1.012–1.163). However, adjuvant IP cycles along with BMI were the determining factors for DFI in the R0 group (HR = 0.703, 95% CI = 0.525–0.941; HR = 1.130, 95% CI = 1.025–1.247), and were associated with OS in the R0 group (HR = 0.488, 95% CI = 0.289–0.824). The OS and DFI Kaplan-Meier curves stratified by adjuvant IP chemothearpy cycles within the R0 group were statistically significant (P = .024 and P = .033, respectively). Our results showed improvement in patients with AEOC in terms of survival, thus suggesting the feasibility of neoadjuvant and adjuvant IP chemotherapy.