Background: Several studies indicated that the diagnosis season affects the prognosis of some cancers, such as examples in the prostate, colon and breast This retrospective study aimed to investigate whether the diagnosis and recurrent season impacts the prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer patients.
Methods: From January 2005 to August 2010, 161 epithelial ovarian cancer patients were analyzed and followed up until August 2013. Kaplan- Meier survival curves and the log-rank test were used to make the survival analysis. Multivariate analysis was conducted to identify independent prognostic factors.
Results: The prognostic factors of overall survival in epithelial ovarian cancer patients included age, clinical stage, pathological type, histological grade, residual disease after primary surgery, recurrent season and adjuvant chemotherapy cycles. Moreover, clinical stage, histological grade, residual disease after primary surgery, recurrent season and adjuvant chemotherapy cycles also impacted the progression-free survival of epithelial ovarian cancer patients. The diagnosis season did not have a significantly relationship with the survival of operable epithelial ovarian cancer patients. Median overall survival of patients with recurrent month from April to November was 47 months, which was longer (P < 0.001) than that of patients with recurrence month from December to March (19 months). Median progression-free survival of patients with recurrence month from April to November and December to March was 20 and 8 months, respectively (P < 0.001).
Conclusion: The recurrence season impacts the survival of epithelial ovarian cancer patients. However, the diagnosed season does not appear to exert a significant influence.