THE PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF CLINICAL, PATHOLOGICAL, AND BIOLOGIC PARAMETERS IN OVARIAN-CANCER

Background. The prognosis in ovarian cancer remains poor, and there is a need to identify patients who are less likely to respond to treatme nt. Methods. In a study of 133 unselected patients with ovarian adenoc arcinoma treated by a standard protocol, variables such as age, tumor type, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage, cel lular differentiation, amount of residual disease after surgery, and r esults from flow cytometry were correlated with survival and relapse a t 24 months. Results. Although stage and cellular differentiation were found to be significant associations with survival and relapse, multi variate analyses identified only residual disease and ploidy status (a nd the related DNA index and percentage of aneuploid cells) as indepen dent prognostic variables. The magnitude of the effect of ploidy depen ded on the amount of residual disease; among patients with less diseas e (< 2 cm), the mortality rate was nearly fourfold higher for those wi th aneuploid tumors than for those with diploid tumors. Conclusions. R outine use of ploidy determination in ovarian cancer is an important p rognostic indicator, especially for a subgroup of patients with minima l residual disease.