Objective: To evaluate the clinical characteristics, survival rate and prognosis of young patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma.
Methods: The clinic data of 455 women with epithelial ovarian carcinoma were reviewed. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the survival rate. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to determine the independent effect of each variable on survival.
Results: Of 445 patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma, 92 were < or = 40 years of age and 363 were older. Higher incidence of early-stage, well differentiation and mucous cell type but lower incidence of serous cell type, ascites and residual tumors were found in the younger group. The overall 5-year survival rates were 79.55% in < or = 40 years group and 28.2% in > 40 years group (P < 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that the survival rate of patients < or = 40 years was significantly higher than that of > 40 years. Only age, stage and residual disease were found to be the significant independent prognostic factors by the multivariate analysis.
Conclusion: Epithelial ovarian carcinoma in patients with age </= 40 has higher incidence of early stage, well differentiation and mucous cystadenocarcinoma as well as a higher 5-year survival rate but lower possibility of residual tumor and ascites. Stage, residual tumor size and age are independent prognostic factors of epithelial ovarian carcinoma.