The survival detriment of venous thromboembolism with epithelial ovarian cancer

Objective

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of venous thromboembolism (VTE) chronology with respect to surgery on survival with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).

Methods

An IRB approved, retrospective review was performed of patients treated for Stage I–IV EOC from 1996 to 2011. Cox proportional hazards model was used to assess associations between VTE and the primary outcomes of progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). SAS 9.3 was used for statistical analyses.

Results

586 patients met study criteria. Median age was 63 years (range, 17–94); median BMI was 27.1 kg/m² (range, 13.7–67.0). Most tumors were high grade serous (68.3%) and advanced stage (III/IV, 75.4%). 3.7% had a preoperative VTE; 13.2% had a postoperative VTE. Upon multivariate analysis adjusting for age, stage, histology, performance status, and residual disease, preoperative VTE was predictive of OS (HR 3.1, 95% CI: 1.6–6.1, p = 0.001) but not PFS (p = 0.55). Postoperative VTE was associated with shorter PFS (HR 1.45, 95% CI: 1.04–2.02, p = 0.03) and OS (HR 1.8, 95% CI: 1.3–2.6, p = 0.001). When VTE timing was modeled, preoperative VTE (HR 3.5, 95% CI: 1.8–6.9, p < 0.001) and postoperative VTE after primary therapy (HR 2.3, 95% CI: 1.4–3.6, p = 0.001) were predictive of OS.

Conclusion

Preoperative and postoperative VTE appear to have a detrimental effect on OS with EOC. When modeled as a binary variable, postoperative VTE attenuated PFS; however, when VTE timing was modeled, postoperative VTE was not associated with PFS. It is unclear whether VTE is an inherent poor prognostic marker or if improved VTE prophylaxis and treatment may enable similar survival to patients without these events.