Fertility sparing treatment of recurrent stage I serous borderline ovarian tumours

Here we report the outcomes of 26 patients who relapsed following conservative surgical treatment of stage I serous borderline ovarian tumours treated initially with fertility-sparing surgery. All recurrences were diagnosed by systematic ultrasonography during follow-up. Eleven patients relapsed at least twice after such management. Twenty-one pregnancies were observed in 13 patients. Eleven of these patients became pregnant after the treatment of their first recurrence. All patients had a borderline ovarian tumour and/or non-invasive peritoneal implants at the time of the first recurrence but two of them had invasive ovarian and peritoneal disease at the time of the second or third recurrence (one of them died of disease). Fertility-preserving surgery remains a valuable alternative (if technically feasible), in young patients with recurrent SBOT, in the form of a non-invasive ovarian lesion, who wish to start a pregnancy. However, it should be associated with meticulous follow-up because the risk of progression to carcinoma exists, albeit small.