Patient selection: recurrent ovarian cancer that is potentially resectable. Extensive intra-abdomiinal disease with bowel obstruction and/or distant metastases would not be considered potentially resectable.
A resection was considered optimum if the maximum diameter of residual tumor was <= 1 cm.
A patient was not a candidate for surgery if disease was unresectable based on preoperative CT scan. Findings indicating that the patient was not an operative candidate included:
(1) invasion of the sacrum
(2) invasion a major pelvic nerve
Findings associated unresectability included:
(1) hydronephrosis secondary to tumor
(2) invasion of the pelvic side wall
Invasion of the pelvic side wall was defined as either:
(1) invasion with minimum distance between tumor and skeletal muscle <= 3 mm
(2) inseparable involvement of an iliac blood vessel over >= 50% of circumference
Patients with no pelvic masses have a high rate of optimum resectability.
