Prognostic significance of lymphadenectomy and prevalence of lymph node metastasis in clinically-apparent stage I endometrioid and mucinous ovarian carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of lymph node (LN) metastasis in women with apparent stage I ovarian carcinoma of endometrioid or mucinous histology and to examine the prognostic significance of LN sampling/dissection (LND) on patient survival.

METHODS

The National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database was accessed and a cohort of surgically-staged women, diagnosed between 1988 and 2013, with apparent stage I ovarian carcinoma of mucinous or endometrioid histology was selected. Information derived from the histopathology report was employed to determine whether LND was performed and the status of harvested LNs. Five-year cancer-specific survival (CSS) rate was calculated following generation of Kaplan-Meier curves. Comparisons were made using the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazard models were constructed to evaluate the effect of LND on survival.

RESULTS

A total of 3354 and 2855 women with endometrioid and mucinous tumors who met the inclusion criteria were identified. LND was performed in 2307 (68.8%) and 1602 (56.1%) of them (p<0.001), respectively. The rate of histopathologically confirmed LN metastasis was 2.1% and 1.7%, respectively. By multivariate analysis LND was associated with superior cancer-specific mortality only for women with endometrioid carcinoma.

CONCLUSIONS

Lymph node involvement in women with mucinous and endometrioid ovarian carcinoma grossly confined to the ovary is infrequent. LND is associated with a survival advantage for those with endometrioid carcinoma.