Background & objective: Advanced ovarian cancer shows a high recurrence and poor survival rate. It is important to identify the risk factors for the recurrence of ovarian cancer, due to the lack of reliable methods for the detection of early disease. This study was designed to explore the risk factors for the recurrence of epithelial ovarian cancer.
Methods: Factors that might be related to the recurrence of 109 epithelial ovarian cancer patients including age, pathological type, FIGO stage, operation type, chemotherapy regimen, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, postoperative chemotherapy cycles, first operation status, and size of residual tumor were analyzed by logistic regression model using SPSS 10.0 statistical software.
Results: Of 109 patients with ovarian cancer, 36 (33%) relapsed after a combination of surgery and chemotherapy, and the median recurrence-free interval was 19 months. The 5-year survival rates were 62.7% and 43.3% for the 109 patients and the recurrent patients, respectively. The survival rates of pelvic recurrence (50.1%) and extra-pelvic recurrence (36.1%) were not statistically different. Univariate analysis showed that the risk of recurrence in mucous adenocarcinoma or FIGO stage I patients were lower than that of other pathology type or FIGO stage (beta=-1.565 and -1.799,P=0.0120 and 0.026 ) while it was higher in the patients given above 8 cycles chemotherapy than those given 1-4 or 6-8 cycles(beta=-3.591 and -1.500,P< 0.001 and =0.038). Multivariate analysis showed that histological type, FIGO stage and postoperative chemotherapy cycles had remarkable influence on the relapse of epithelial ovarian cancer independently(RR=3.473, 4.713, and 6.140, respectively, P< 0.05).
Conclusion: Histological type, FIGO stage, and postoperative chemotherapy cycles influence the recurrence of epithelial ovarian cancer. Since FIGO stage is a remarkable risk factor for the recurrence, early diagnosis should be the key point to decrease it. Reasonable chemotherapy plan is essential for the therapy of ovarian cancer, but excessive chemotherapy is not good for effectiveness.