文摘

Background Although recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is generally regarded as an incurable disease, some patients survive more than 5?years after the first recurrence. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical features of patients with recurrent EOC who achieve long-term survival. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 164 patients with recurrent EOC and analyzed the clinical stage, histologic subtype, primary treatment, disease-free interval (DFI), recurrence site, secondary treatment, and overall survival from the time of the first recurrence (R-OS), using the Kaplan–Meier method and the log-rank test. Results The median R-OS for all 164 patients was 25?months and the 5-year R-OS rate was 25.4?%. There were no significant differences in R-OS according to the disease stage. The median R-OS was significantly shorter in the 6-2-month DFI group (23?months) than in the ?2-month DFI group (61?months) (p?=?0.0002), while there was no significant difference between the 6-2 and 3--month DFI groups (20?months) (p?=?0.161). Of the 164 patients, only 14 survived >5?years after the first recurrence. Most of them underwent surgery and/or radiotherapy in combination with chemotherapy and underwent >18 cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy throughout their treatments (median 22 cycles; range 4-4). Conclusions If high sensitivity to platinum is maintained, patients with recurrent EOC may have prolonged survival following repeated platinum-based chemotherapy cycles. Moreover, their prognosis improves when chemotherapy is combined with secondary cytoreductive surgery and/or irradiation.