[Postoperative adjuvant whole abdomen irradiation in ovarian cancer]

Seventy-nine patients with ovarian carcinoma stage I-III postoperatively received a whole abdominal irradiation (median dose: 22.5 Gy) followed by pelvic boost irradiation (median pelvic dose: 45 Gy) as the sole adjuvant therapy. Surgery preceding the irradiation was radical only in 59 percent of the patients. Whole abdominal irradiation was performed either in the moving-strip-technique or the open-field-technique. The median follow-up time was 57 months. The overall and the progression-free five-year survival rate of the whole group is 66 +/- 6% and 63 +/- 6%, respectively. We have not seen a clear-cut dependence of the survival rates on the completeness of the surgery, on tumor histology or grading. In a statistically significant way, the survival rates depend on the stage, the presence of tumor rests, and, above all, on the risk group. The overall five-year survival rate for the intermediate-risk patients is 78 +/- 7% and 22 +/- 11% for high risk patients. There aren't any randomized studies concerning the optimal adjuvant therapy for intermediate-risk patients. Because of the reproduceable results and the infrequent toxicity, whole abdominal irradiation seems to be a treatment equivalent to other adjuvant therapies for these patients.