Survival and prognostic factors of women with advanced ovarian cancer and complete response after a carboplatin-paclitaxel chemotherapy

Objective. We evaluated the characteristics and determinants of 5-year survival in ovarian cancer patients with complete response after first line treatment who entered a randomised study comparing two different chemotherapeutic schedules. Methods. This analysis included 232 ovarian cancer patients with complete response after first line surgery and chemotherapy coming from a large randomised trial comparing the effect of different doses of paclitaxel combined with fixed doses of carboplatin. Results. The 5-year overall survival in patients was 57.3%. The difference in 5-year survival for age <52 years (65.1%), 53-62 (51.4%) and ≥63 (51.2%) was statistically significant (P = 0.048). The 5-year overall survival rates were 64.6% for stage III and 57.9% for stage IV. Serous and clear cell histotypes had a worse 5-year overall survival (51.5% and 50.8% respectively), while the endometrioid and mucinous had 67.1% and 71.4%: these differences were statistically different (P = 0.04). Women with residual tumour of 1 cm or smaller after primary surgery had better 5-year survival rates: 71.2% for patients with residual tumour ≤1 cm and 46.9% for residual tumour >1 cm: these differences were statistically significant (P < 0.006). Conclusion. This study shows that in women with ovarian cancer and complete response after first line surgery and chemotherapy, age, histotype and residual tumour after surgery are determinants of 5-year overall survival.