Is complete surgical staging necessary in patients with stage I mucinous epithelial ovarian tumors?

To evaluate the impact on prognosis of complete surgical staging in patients with stage I mucinous epithelial ovarian tumors.

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all patients with stage I mucinous epithelial tumors apparently confined to ovaries treated in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Asan Medical Center, from 1990 through 2005.

Of 264 patients treated during this time period, 62 (23.5%) had complete and 202 (76.5%) had incomplete initial surgical staging. No patient with clinically apparent stage I borderline tumor was upstaged, 5 of 85 patients with invasive mucinous cancer was upstaged due to positive peritoneal cytology and there was no upstaged patient owing to occult lymph node metastasis. No recurrence was observed in the completely staged and 2 (1.4%) in the incompletely staged group among the patients with borderline tumor developed relapse. Three (11.5%) recurrences in the completely staged and four (6.8%) in the incompletely staged group among the patients with invasive cancer were observed, and the difference was not statistically significant. We also observed no significant differences between two groups in progression-free survival and overall survival.

Complete surgical staging could probably be omitted in patients with stage I mucinous epithelial tumors.