Restaging laparotomy and ovarian cancer

We retrospectively reviewed the records of 41 patients who had restaging laparotomy after initial surgery and chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. In 37 of them, the cancer was epithelial. Stage and amount of residual disease after initial cytoreductive surgery correlated with laparotomy outcome. There were no operative deaths, and perioperative morbidity was relatively minor. Of the 25 patients with residual disease after initial cytoreductive surgery ten had a complete response, eight had a partial response, two had stable disease, and five had progression. Three patients (11.5%) had recurrent disease after a negative restaging laparotomy. We discuss salvage therapy and the value of restaging laparotomy in ovarian cancer.