Does Time-to-Chemotherapy after Primary Complete Macroscopic Cytoreductive Surgery Influence Prognosis for Patients with Epithelial Ovarian Cancer?
No woman with ovarian cancer has a perfect treatment course. Clinicians aim to manage the cancer as well as possible. However, very often internal and external factors have an effect to alter the management. None more so than during the current pandemic, which has caused many changes to best clinical care, often with delays to surgery and chemotherapy.
This study from France looks at the impact of delaying the onset of chemo following previous surgical resection of ovarian cancer. 233 patient’s records were surveyed, the median time before chemo commenced was 43 days. Overall survival time was recorded, the median being 77 months.
If the onset of chemo was delayed to longer than 8 weeks after surgery, there was deterioration in the overall survival with a median time of 59 months. No difference in survival was recorded for any of the women if the chemo commenced at any time within 6 weeks after surgery. The authors suggest that chemo should be commenced as soon as possible, but a short delay will not be harmful.
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