Bowel obstruction in advanced tubo-ovarian cancer: a retrospective cohort study

Ten to fifty percent of women with advanced or recurrent ovarian cancer develop malignant bowel obstruction (MBO). We described the management and examined the complications and survival of MBO in primary epithelial tubo-ovarian cancer patients.

The authors conducted a retrospective monocentric cohort study of tubo-ovarian cancer patients diagnosed with MBO between January 1st, 2011 until August 31st, 2017 at the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium.

Seventy-three patients with a total of 165 MBO episodes (median 1/patient; range 1-14) were included. The median time interval between cancer diagnosis and first MBO episode was 373 days (range 0-1937). The median time interval between MBO episodes was 44 days (range 6-2004). Complications were bowel perforation (n=5; 7%) and bowel ischemia (n=1; 1%). Conservative treatment was applied in 150 (91%) episodes, including gastrostomy in 4 (2%) episodes and octreotide in 79 (48%) episodes. Surgery was necessary in 15 (9%) episodes. Total parenteral nutrition was administered in 16 (22%) patients. During the study period 62 (85%) patients died (median 167 days since first MBO; range 6-2256). A significant difference in survival was found regarding the tumor marker CA 125 at cancer diagnosis, the use of palliative chemotherapy after the first episode of MBO and palliative surgical treatment for MBO in a group of well selected patients.

Tubo-ovarian cancer patients with MBO have a poor prognosis: 85% of the study population died within a relatively short time interval since the first MBO. In our study population, the majority of patients with MBO were treated conservatively. Both palliative chemotherapy and palliative surgical management are considerable treatment options depending on the individual patient profile.