Analysis of clinical effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the role and significance of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer.

Methods: 128 patients clinically diagnosed with stage IIC-IV advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) were randomized into neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) combined with interval cytoreductive surgery (ICS) group (n=66) and primary cytoreductive surgery (PCS) group (n=62). Chemotherapy in the PCS group was administered after cytoreductive surgery.

Results: Age, body mass index, clinical symptoms, clinical staging, histopathological grading and histopathological type had no differences between PCS and ICS groups (p>0.05). In NACT-ICS group, the mean operation time was shorter, the bleeding was less, the rate of optimal debulking surgery was higher and the total effective rate of clinical remission was higher, compared with those in PCS group (p<0.05). No significant differences were found in the survival rate, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) between the two groups.

Conclusions: In comparison to PCS, NACT-ICS can improve the intraoperative conditions, increase the cytoreductive rate, reduce the bleeding of operation, reduce the operation time and increase the clinical remission rate, but it has no impact on PFS and OS.