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Patients with advanced ovarian cancer who receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) followed by interval surgery had survival rates similar to those who have primary debulking surgery (PDS) followed by chemotherapy, researchers reported in JCO Oncology Advances.
The results thus question the assumption that upfront surgery is inherently superior, said John K. Chan, MD, of California Pacific/Palo Alto/Sutter Cancer Research Institute in San Francisco, and colleagues.
In an accompanying comment about the study's relevance, an associate editor of the journal, Susan Halabi, PhD, FSCT, FASA, FASCO, chief of the Division of Biostatistics at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, said the findings offer important insight into how patient and disease characteristics influence the choice between primary debulking surgery with adjuvant chemotherapy and neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by interval cytoreduction in ovarian cancer.
The results also show that, after adjusting for prognostic factors, survival outcomes are comparable, supporting the use of either approach based on individual patient profiles, she said.
