Fertility-sparing surgery in young women with mucinous adenocarcinoma of the ovary

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to clarify the clinical outcome of patients with stage IA mucinous epithelial ovarian cancer (mEOC) treated with fertility-sparing surgery (FSS).

Methods: After a central pathological review and search of the medical records from multiple institutions, a total of 148 stage I mEOC patients were retrospectively evaluated in the current study. All mEOC patients were divided into three groups: group A (FSS; age, 40≥); groups B and C {radical surgery; age, 40≥ (B); 40< (C)}. Survival analysis was performed among these three groups using Kaplan-Meier methods.

Results: The median follow-up time of all mEOC patients was 71.6 (4.8-448.3) months. Among the 41 patients in group A, 27 patients (65.9%) had IA disease, and 14 (34.1%) had IC disease. Five-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates of patients in the groups were as follows: group A, 97.3% (OS)/90.5% (DFS); group B, 94.4% (OS)/94.4% (DFS); group C; 97.3% (OS)/89.3% (DFS). Collectively, there was no significant difference in OS or DFS among these groups even though they were stratified to each substage (IA/IC) (OS, P=0.180; DFS, P=0.445, respectively). Furthermore, in multivariate analyses, the surgical procedure was not an independent prognostic factor for either OS or DFS (OS, HR: 0.340, 95% CI: 0.034-3.775, P=0.352; DFS, HR: 0.660, 95% CI: 0.142-3.070, P=0.596).

Conclusions: Patients with stage I mEOC treated with FSS did not necessarily show a poorer prognosis than those receiving radical surgery.