Preoperative Predictors of Optimal Tumor Resectability in Patients With Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Background Several studies have shown that whether complete tumor resection can be achieved during debulking surgery depends on various patient-related factors. However, none of these studies was conducted among patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we aimed to determine the preoperative predictors of optimal tumor resectability (OTR) during primary debulking surgery (PDS) in patients with EOC. Methodology In this study, we reviewed all patients with histologically diagnosed EOC who underwent PDS between January 2011 and December 2020. We included 83 patients with complete clinical records for subsequent data analysis. Descriptive statistics were computed for patients’ data, and binary logistic regression analysis was used to assess the strength of associations between patients’ preoperative characteristics and OTR. Results The overall rate of OTR was 53.0%, while the rate in advanced EOC patients was 36.1%. In the univariate analyses, pleural effusion, ascites, tumor bilaterality, size of the largest tumor, retroperitoneal lymph nodes, omental caking, peritoneal thickening, significant extrapelvic tumor, serum cancer antigen-125 (CA-125) levels, and hemoglobin levels were recorded as the predictors of OTR. However, after adjusting for covariates in the final multivariate models, we found that the absence of moderate-to-large pleural effusion (odds ratio (OR) = 5.60; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.32, 23.71) and having serum CA-125 levels of ≤370 U/mL (OR = 6.80; 95% CI = 1.19, 38.79) were the overall independent predictors of OTR while not having any preexisting comorbidity (OR = 18.21; 95% CI = 2.40, 38.10), and the absence of pleural effusions (OR = 13.75; 95% CI = 1.80, 24.85) or enlarged retroperitoneal lymph nodes (OR = 11.95; 95% CI = 1.35, 16.07) were predictors of OTR in advanced EOC patients. Conclusions We demonstrated that the radiological absence of pleural effusions and enlarged retroperitoneal lymph nodes and having no preexisting medical morbidity and serum CA-125 levels of ≤370 U/mL were the independent predictors of OTR during PDS. The preliminary data generated from this study can be used to develop variables for a prediction model in a future validation study.