Ovarian cancer is an uncommon condition that usually affects women in the later stages of their life. Surgical cytoreduction is one of the known treatments for recurrent ovarian cancer, but its effectiveness is not yet investigated. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of secondary surgical cytoreduction for recurrent, platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer.
This is a randomized study that included a total of 485 patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, who had received one previous therapy and were determined to undergo secondary surgical cytoreduction followed by platinum-based chemotherapy. Out of the total patients, 240 were randomly assigned to secondary cytoreduction before chemotherapy, and 245 to chemotherapy alone. The main outcome of the study was overall survival of the participants.
At 48.1 months of follow-up, the hazard ratio for death between surgery and no surgery was 1.29, which translated to a median overall survival of 50.6 months and 64.7 months, respectively. The hazard ratio of disease progression between surgery and non-surgery was 0.82. A significant decrease in quality of life after surgery was reported in patients, but it did not differ much from the non-surgical group.
The research concluded that secondary surgical cytoreduction followed by chemotherapy did not result in any significant improvements in overall survival, disease progression, or quality of life than chemotherapy alone.
Ref: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1902626
