Abstract
BACKGROUND: Intraperitoneal/intravenous chemotherapy (IP/IV) was associated with improved survival for ovarian cancer (OC) patients in several randomized clinical trials. However, the uptake of IP/IV in clinical practice is varied due to conflicting evidence about its impact on survival and recurrence. The aim of this study was to explore the uptake of IP/IV treatment and to evaluate its impact on survival and recurrence in OC patients. METHODS: Demographic and clinical information on OC patients (N = 2916) who underwent treatment for OC between 2000 and 2017 was obtained from the large healthcare system cancer registry. Duplicate records, grade 1, rare (eg, gelatinous carcinoma), and non-epithelial (eg, granulosa cell carcinoma) tumors were excluded. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were constructed to compare 5- and 10-year survival based on the chemotherapy type, surgery type, and stage. Multivariable Gray's piecewise constant time-varying coefficient models were fitted to evaluate the effect of IP/IV on adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) of OC survival and recurrence adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: The final sample consisted of 1846 OC patients, 14% (250/1846) of which received IP/IV chemotherapy. IP/IV was significantly associated with improved 10-year survival (P < .001). Multivariable Gray's model demonstrated that IP/IV therapy significantly reduced the AHR of death (AHR = 0.39-1.07, P < .001) with the beneficial effect gradually declining over time. Use of IP/IV chemotherapy had no impact on OC recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrated that only a small fraction of eligible patients underwent IP/IV chemotherapy. We report a significant 10-year survival, but not necessarily recurrence benefit is associated with IP/IV chemotherapy compared to IV only, suggesting the need for novel ways of identifying patients who may benefit from IP/IV chemotherapy.