Clinical Outcome of Patients with Advanced Ovarian Cancer after Resection of Liver Metastases

Hepatic resection has become the standard treatment for patients with primary or metastatic liver malignancies. The aim of our study was to evaluate the clinical outcome of hepatic resection in patients with advanced ovarian cancer (AOC). All patients undergoing hepatic resection for AOC in our institution between 11/1991 and 02/2007 were evaluated by a validated intraoperative documentation tool. Seventy patients were evaluated (median age=59 years; range=29-76 years). Forty-one (58.6%) patients underwent liver resection; 29 patients had unresectable disease. Additional multivisceral procedures performed were: colic resection (51.4%), small bowel resection (32.9%), gastric resection (5.7%), pancreatic resection (4.3%), splenectomy (5.7%). The median survival of patients with R0 resection was 42 months (95% confidence interval (CI)=17-66 months), 4 months for R1, 6 months (95% CI=0-11 months) for R2, and 5 months (95% CI=0-9 months) for those without liver resection. In multivariate analysis, postoperative residual tumor mass was the strongest predictor of survival. Our data indicate that complete macroscopical tumor resection remains the strongest predictor of survival in patients with liver metastases from AOC.