title: Radiation therapy in stage III ovarian cancer following surgery and chemotherapy: prognostic factors, patterns of relapse, and toxicity: a preliminary report.
abstract: Twenty patients with FIGO stage III epithelial ovarian cancer who had undergone maximum cytoreductive surgery (including pelvic and paraaortic lymph node dissection) and combination chemotherapy (4-10 cycles, median 6) were treated with irradiation to the abdomen and pelvis with 30 Gy followed by diaphragmatic/paraaortic and pelvis boost fields to 42 and 51.6 Gy, respectively. Second-look laparotomy was not performed. Seventeen of 20 patients completed the planned course of radiation. In 2 cases, failure to complete treatment was related to acute hematologic toxicity, and 1 patient refused further treatment. Five patients (29%) required treatment breaks ranging from 8 to 16 days (median, 12 days) due to pancytopenia. Actuarial overall survival and relapse-free survival at 3 years for the 17 patients who completed radiation was 69 and 47%, respectively, with follow-up ranging from 19 to 53 months (median: 24, mean: 27.6 months). Seven patients (41%) relapsed within the abdomen alone and 2 patients developed extraabdominal lymph node metastasis as their sole site of failure. The prognostic factors evaluated for correlation with relapse-free survival included histologic subtype, grade, amount of residual disease at the time of surgery, and nodal involvement; only residual tumor at surgery (none vs less than or equal to 2 cm or greater than 2 cm) was found to be statistically significant (P less than 0.01). Three-year overall survival correlated with amount of residual disease following the initial cytoreductive surgery. It was 100% for patients with no residual disease, 66.7% for less than or equal to 2 cm, and 26.7% for those with greater than 2 cm residual disease, respectively. Radiation treatment was well tolerated, with only one patient developing treatment-related bowel obstruction 7 months after radiation therapy. The results of this planned trimodality treatment approach compare favorably with those reported following surgery and chemotherapy, particularly in patients who have been maximally cytoreduced.
authors.affiliation: University Clinic of Radiology/Department of Radiotherapy, Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: K S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Arian-Schad
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Kapp
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hackl
authors.forename: F M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Juettner
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Leitner
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Porsch
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lahousen
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pickel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D011379:Prognosis; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015996:Survival Rate