Value of Tertiary Cytoreductive Surgery in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: An International Multicenter Evaluation

We evaluated 406 patients (median age, 55 years; range, 16–80 years). Median time from first to second recurrence was 18 months (2–204 months). Median follow-up from TCS was 14 months (0–182 months), and median OS was 26 months (95 % CI, 19.62–32.38 months). Median OS for patients without versus any tumor residuals was 49 months (95 % CI, 42.5–56.4 months) versus 12 months (95 % CI 9.3–14.7 months) (p < 0.001). The majority of the patients had an advanced initial FIGO stage III/IV (69 %), peritoneal carcinomatosis (51.7 %), and absence of ascites (72.2 %). A total of 224 patients (54.1 %) underwent complete tumor resection. The most frequent tumor dissemination site was the pelvis (73 %). Rates of major operative morbidity and 30-day mortality were 25.9 % and 3.2 %, respectively. Multivariate analysis identified platinum resistance, tumor residuals at secondary surgery, and peritoneal carcinomatosis to be of predictive significance for complete tumor resection, while tumor residuals at secondary and tertiary surgery, decreasing interval to second relapse, ascites, upper abdominal tumor involvement, and nonplatinum third-line chemotherapy significantly affected OS.