Survival outcomes following interval versus primary debulking surgery in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer: A retrospective cohort study in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title> <bold>Background:</bold> There is conflicting evidence regarding the survival benefit of interval debulking surgery (IDS) compared to conventional treatment with primary debulking surgery (PDS) in women with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). <bold>Objectives:</bold> We compared the survivals following PDS followed by adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) versus IDS after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in women with advanced EOC at the gynaecological oncology unit of a tertiary referral centre in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria. <bold>Methods:</bold> The data of 126 women with advanced EOC who had standard treatment with either PDS and ACT or NACT and IDS between January 2008 and December 2017 were analyzed. Kaplan-Meier estimates of progression-free (PFS) and overall survival (OS) time stratified by the types of upfront debulking surgery were calculated and compared by employing the log-rank test statistics. Cox proportional hazard models were then used to estimate hazard ratios of the association between the type of surgical debulking and survivals while adjusting for all necessary covariates. <bold>Results:</bold> We recorded no statistically significant differences in PFS (adjusted hazard ratio=1.28, 95% confidence interval 0.82–2.01, P=0.282) and OS (adjusted hazard ratio=1.23, 95% confidence interval 0.68–2.25, P=0.491) between IDS and PDS among women with advanced EOC. <bold>Conclusions:</bold> There is a need for a larger prospective multicenter study to further compare the impact of upfront surgical debulking types on the survival of women with advanced EOC in our setting. In the meantime, giving interval debulking surgery after a few courses of neoadjuvant chemotherapy should be an acceptable standard of care for women with advanced EOC.