[Evaluation of progression-free interval in patients with ovarian cancer treated by first-line chemotherapy with paclitaxel and carboplatin].

Unlabelled: Combination therapy with paclitaxel is widely proposed for first-line adjuvant treatment in ovarian cancer patients in Hungary as well as worldwide. The authors summarize the results of paclitaxel-carboplatin therapy of the years from 2000 to 2002, and compare them to the results observed in 2002.

Material And Methods: 86 patients with ovarian cancer of stage I-IV were treated with the combination with paclitaxel (175 mg/m2, 3 hours) and carboplatin (AUC 5) at the Gynecological Department, National Institute of Oncology, Budapest. Average age of the patients was found 54+/-9.8 years. Optimal surgery (hysterectomy with bilateral adnexectomy and omentectomy with a maximal residual tumor burden of 1 cm) was done in 43 of the 86 patients.

Results: Tumor-free status was found in 60% and 31% of the patients in 2002 and 2005 respectively. Tumor-free status was observed in the groups of optimally operated and non-optimally operated patients in 79% and 42% in 2002 and in 44% and 19% in 2005. Median progression-free interval was higher in the optimally than in the nonoptimally operated patients (25 and 11 months), and was resulted in 16.5 months of all patients.

Conclusion: Our paclitaxel-carboplatin treatment resulted in a similar progression-free interval as that was found in the literature, however, the ratio of tumor-free patients decreased to 31% during the follow-up time (median: 41 months).