Palliative treatment for bowel obstruction in ovarian cancer: a meta-analysis

To comprehensively evaluate and compare outcomes of surgical versus nonsurgical palliative interventions for bowel obstruction due to ovarian cancer.

Studies were obtained from database search systems of Pubmed, Medline, Wiley, Springerlink, Kluwer, Web of science and Science direct. Data were analyzed by the meta-analysis method and the random-effect or fixed-effect model. The heterogeneity between the studies was evaluated by I² index and the data were analyzed using STATA version 14.1.

12 studies involving 2778 cases of bowel obstruction in ovarian cancer were included, including 1225 cases of surgery and 1553 cases of palliative nonsurgical treatment. Surgery group had significantly higher remission rate of bowel obstruction (OR = 0.350, 95% CI 0.067-1.819, P = 0.000),but had no manifesting difference in the recurrence rate compared no-surgery group (RR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.76-1.03, P = 0.106). In 30-day mortality rate, surgery group had higher mortality rate (RR = 0.453, 95% CI 0.161-1.272, P = 0.000). But, surgical treatment can markedly prolong survival period (HR = 0.333, 95% CI 0.275-0.390, P = 0.000) compared nonsurgical treatment.

Surgery can significantly relieve the symptom of intestinal obstruction, prolonging the survival period, but had no impact on the recurrence. Compared with no-surgery group, surgery group suffered higher 30-day mortality.