title: The value of second-look operation in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian carcinoma.
abstract: A second-look operation was performed on 151 patients with stage III and IV epithelial ovarian carcinoma who had responded to primary surgery and chemotherapy. 19% of the 79 patients who appeared clinically to be free of disease had microscopic recurrences and 23% had macroscopic residual disease at a second-look operation. The 5-year survival rate for patients with no histological and for those with microscopic secondaries at second-look operation were 55% and 35% respectively (P = 0.45). Only patients with well or moderately well differentiated tumors and a small residual tumor mass at first operation had a good prognosis after a second-look operation even without further chemotherapy. Median survival after secondary debulking was 15 to 17 months and was independent in the radicality of the second-look procedure. Outside of clinical trials second-look laparotomy should therefore only be performed as a diagnostic procedure in patients with well or moderately well differentiated tumors who are left with a small residual tumor mass at the time of the first operation. Because this is a group of patients in whom chemotherapy can be discontinued after a negative second-look operation.
authors.affiliation: First Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sevelda
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dittrich
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Salzer
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D011379:Prognosis; D012008:Recurrence; D012086:Reoperation; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative