Hormone replacement therapy after invasive ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma treatment: the effect on survival

Our report deals with the presumed influence of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on the survival of patients with invasive ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma.

We selected a group of 24 patients with the diagnosis of invasive ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma who were treated with HRT after primary surgical treatment. Each patient from the selected group was compared with two patients from the control group with the same diagnosis who did not receive HRT. The matching criteria were the age at the time of the diagnosis, year of the diagnosis, stage of the disease, differentiation, residual tumor after first operation, and disease-free interval until receiving HRT. We used Cox regression to calculate odds ratios as estimates of the effect of HRT on overall survival in the patients with invasive ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma who did or did not receive HRT after diagnosis.

HRT was started an average of 21 months (range, 1-25 months) after diagnosis, and lasted for an average of 24 months (range, 1-70 months). After taking into account the effects of other known prognostic factors (the age at the time of the diagnosis, stage of the disease, differentiation, type of operation, residual tumour before the first operation), the estimated risk of death in patients with invasive ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma who received HRT was 0.90 (odds ratio = 0.90; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-5.08).

The results of our small study are only preliminary and suggest that HRT does not have a pronounced effect on survival. A single center can scarcely obtain a sufficient number of such a specific group of cancer patients; therefore, the collaboration of different institutions, preferably in a randomized, controlled trial, is needed for more reliable results.