The neoadjuvant approach in the treatment of patients with advanced epithelial ovarian carcinoma

AimsOvarian cancer has a very poor prognosis, with 5-year survival rates of 5–20% for advanced-stage disease. This work was designed to verify whether the neoadjuvant approach had an effect on survival in patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer.Materials and methodsPatients with stage III or IV disease who received neoadjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy (group 1) were compared with a group of conventionally treated patients (group 2).ResultsMost of the patients in group 1 (76%) had partial tumoral responses after chemotherapy. Patients from group 1 (n = 42) had a median survival that was not different from that in patients from group 2 (n = 348). Patients who received platinum-based chemotherapy with taxanes had the same survival of patients who received no taxanes.ConclusionsOur results showed similar responses and survival rates for patients with stage III or IV ovarian cancer treated with neoadjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy, when compared with patients who underwent primary suboptimal cytoreductive surgery. Our data therefore support the ongoing trials to determine the optimum timing of surgery for ovarian cancer.