Early second surgery in ovarian cancer--improving the potential for cure or another unnecessary operation?

The presence and amount of residual disease after primary surgery is a major adverse prognostic factor in epithelial ovarian cancer [EOC]. Rapid initial cytoreduction employing second surgery early in the primary chemotherapeutic management of patients with gross residual disease has been advocated as a means of improving outcome. To evaluate the prognostic value of such an approach we have reviewed the outcome of 24 patients with gross residual disease, who were debulked to less than 2 cm residuum at a second operation, performed after three cycles of cis-platinum-based chemotherapy (a median of 14 weeks from the initial laparotomy), and compared this with an historical series of 195 patients with residual disease (70 patients with less than 2 cm residuum) who received cis-platinum but no early secondary surgery. In the control series, stage and residual disease status were important prognostic factors. There was no significant difference in patient or disease characteristics between those patients in the early second surgery group and control patients with greater than 2 cm disease (n = 125). Initially the survival curve for the early second surgery group was similar to the less than 2 cm disease group, but at about 18 months, there was a rapid deterioration until the survival parallels that of the patients with bulky disease at presentation. Early secondary surgery did not significantly prolong survival in patients with greater than 2 cm of residual disease.