Intraperitoneal and intravenous (IP/IV) chemotherapy was associated with significantly improved overall survival in patients with ovarian cancer, a new study published online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has shown.
Previous research demonstrated that IP/IV chemotherapy administered to patients with ovarian cancer resulted in a 16-month survival benefit.
Therefore, researchers sought to assess the use and effectiveness of IP/IV chemotherapy in women with ovarian cancer in clinical practice.
Continue Reading
Researchers identified 823 women with stage 3, optimally cytoreduced ovarian cancer who were diagnosed at six National Comprehensive Cancer Network institutions between 2003 and 2012 and compared them with 402 controls diagnosed between 2006 and 2012.
Results showed that IP/IV chemotherapy was linked with significantly improved 3-year overall survival compared with IV chemotherapy (HR = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.47, 0.99).
IP/IV chemotherapy was also associated with more frequent changes to chemotherapy delivery route versus IV chemotherapy (OR = 2.83; 95% CI: 1.47, 5.47).
RELATED: Younger Women May Face Worse Ovarian Cancer Outcomes After Primary Therapy
Researchers found that IP/IV chemotherapy use increased from 0% in 2003 to 50% in 2008, but only 4% to 67% of institutions adopted IP/IV chemotherapy between 2006 and 2012 (P<0.001).
Moreover, 43% of patients received modified IP/IV chemotherapy regimens at the time of treatment initiation.
The findings suggest that increasing IP/IV chemotherapy use in clinical practice may be an underused but important strategy to improve outcomes in patients with ovarian cancer.
Reference
- Wright AA, Cronin A, Milne DE, et al. Use and effectiveness of intraperitoneal chemotherapy for treatment of ovarian cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2015. [epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.61.4776.
