Adjuvant radiotherapy in early stage ovarian carcinoma

In a series of 228 women diagnosed with malignant ovarian tumors during the years 1980-87 radiotherapy was added as postoperative adjuvant therapy. Twenty-three cases with epithelial borderline carcinomas and 18 cases with nonepithelial tumors were excluded from the analysis. The remaining 187 cases of invasive epithelial ovarian carcinoma in FIGO stage I-II was a complete, consecutive, and total geographic series. After primary staging surgery lower abdomino-pelvic or whole abdominal radiotherapy was administered. The dose to the upper part of the abdomen was 20 Gy (fraction dose 1.0 Gy) and to the lower part and the pelvis 40 Gy (fraction dose 1.7 Gy). The patients were followed up for at least 10 years. During the follow-up 75 tumors (40%) recurred and were then treated with cisplatin-containing chemotherapy. Abdomino-pelvic (18%) and abdomino-pelvic-distant metastases (11%) were most frequent. Mean time to recurrence was 26 months. The 5-year overall survival of the complete series was 57% and the cancer-specific survival 66%. FIGO stage and tumor grade were the only independent and significant prognostic factors in a Cox multivariate analysis. Only cases in FIGO stage IA and grade 1 could be classified as low-risk cases with 5-year survival of 87%. All other cases showed a significantly worse prognosis and should be classified as intermediate or high-risk cases. Early radiation reactions were frequent (80%) but of little clinical significance. In 21 cases (11%) late radiation reactions were recorded. In 8 cases (4%) the reactions were regarded as severe and required surgical intervention or disabled the patient significantly. The results compare well with others reported in the literature.