title: Clinical characteristics of primary peritoneal carcinoma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The goal of this study was to determine the clinical and therapeutic characteristics of women with a primary peritoneal carcinoma (PPC).
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective clinical study was conducted to evaluate 22 women diagnosed with a PPC from 1993 to 2007 at the Hospitals of The Catholic University of Korea. Diagnoses were based on the Gynecologic Oncology Group criteria and clinical data. We collected patient clinicopathological data including age, presenting symptoms, pretreatment CA-125 values (U/ml), clinical stage (based on the FIGO stage), performance status (using the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group scale), whether cytoreductive surgery was optimal or not, types of chemotherapy and response to treatment. We evaluated the clinical characteristics and response to treatment, time to treatment failure and overall survival.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The median overall survival of all patients was 23.1 months. The estimated 3-year survival rate was 29% (SE, 13%). The response rate to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy was 79% and the median time to treatment failure was 9.9 months (95% confidence interval, 1.38~18.4 months). By univariate and multivariate analysis, performance status was the only significant factor associated with overall survival (p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We evaluated the clinical characteristics and treatment response of patients with a primary peritoneal carcinoma. Our results showed that it is possible to achieve long-term survival in patients with PPC. A further clinical study is to need to establish clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Sang Young
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Roh
authors.forename: Sook Hee
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Yoon Ho
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Tae Hee
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Myung Ah
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Byoung Yong
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Shim
authors.forename: Jae Ho
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Byun
authors.forename: In Sook
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: Jin Hyoung
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Young Seon
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Kyung Shik
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Lee