Objective: The goal of the study was to analyze results of 171 second-look laparotomy and compare survival of patients with advanced ovarian cancer depending on SLL results.
Results: We obtained the following results: complete pathologic response (CPR)--56.2% (96 patients), microscopic disease (R(micro))--12.8% (22 patients), macroscopic disease (R(marco))--31% (53 patients). In patients with negative SLL results disease recurrence was diagnosed in 38.5%. We compared survival in separate groups of patients depending on SLL results: no difference between the CPR group and R(micro) group. Significantly longer survival of patients in the R(micro) group was found compared to patients with recurrence after negative SLL. There were no differences between the group with recurrence after negative SLL and the R(macro) group.
Conclusions: An important observation is that the survival rate in patients with recurrence after negative SLL was significantly lower compared to patients with microscopic disease. The probable explanation for favorable prognosis in the group with microscopic disease was early administration of chemotherapy after SLL.