Objectives: Borderline ovarian tumors have favorable survival rates, however, prognostic factors are still discussed. The aim was to investigate the outcome for women treated conservatively with respect to different tumor-dependent and tumor-independent prognostic factors.
Material and methods: 194 women treated surgically between years 1978 and 2007. Influence of conservative or radical surgical treatment on survival was evaluated.
Results: The overall 5-year survival rate was 93.1% and 96.8% respectively for radical and conservative treatment. The mean time of survival was longer in women treated conservatively (p = 0.03), but this was an outcome of their younger age; when age was eliminated as a determining factor; the type of treatment had not influenced the length of postoperative survival (p=0.57). Conservative treatment was chosen more frequently for younger women. Factors that are detrimental to survival are age, postmenopausal detection of borderline ovarian tumors, an advanced stage of progression, a bilateral localization of tumors, the occurrence of invasive peritoneal implants and a serous rather than a mucinous histological type of borderline ovarian tumor more frequently occurred in women treated radically Borderline ovarian tumors recurred in 16.7% of women after conservative treatment and in 3.5% of women after radical treatment. Of women with preserved fertility 25.7% became pregnant at least once and 21.2% of the group as a whole delivered children at term; none of the pregnancies were fertility-assisted.
Conclusions: Conservative treatment does not have a deleterious effect on the prognosis of women provided that unfavorable prognostic factors are identified.