ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the impact of systematic retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy (SL) in patients with advanced ovarian cancer. Methods The data on 188 patients with FIGO stageⅢC epithelial ovarian cancer were retrospectively analyzed. All the patients underwent primary debulking surgery and then received platinum-based chemotherapy. The patients were divided into SL group and non-systematic lymphadenectomy (USL) group. Progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) times were analyzed. Results PFS and OS were higher in SL group than in USL group (36 versus 17 months and P = 0.022; 58 versus 52 months and P = 0.041). Univariate analysis showed that both SL and optimal debulking surgery were the independent prognostic factors , but multivariate analysis indicated that optimal debulking surgery was the only independent prognostic factor. However , for 143 patients without enlarged retroperitoneal lymph nodes , multivariate analysis showed that either SL or optimal debulking surgery were the independent prognostic factor (P = 0.040 and P = 0.014). Conclusions Optimal debulking surgery is helpful in improvement of the survival in patients with advanced ovarian cancer. For patients without enlarged retroperitoneal lymph nodes, SL still has a positive effect on the prognosis.