Do we need to do comprehensive surgical staging in all cases of clinical early ovarian cancer?

ABSTRACT

Meticulous staging of ovarian cancer has so far been a prerequisite for treatment planning. However, more than 80% of patients operated by non-oncologists all over the world do not under go a complete staging. Recently there have been reports questioning the need for extensive staging from the point of cervical benefit. We have analysed our data of 64 stage ovarian cancer patients to see if clinical staging was adequate or relaparotomy with restaging is necessary. We conclude that though pathological staging is important for proper reporting of results and evaluation of treatment modalities, in the existing circumstances, a judicious use of clinical methods and taking available pathological factors into account, we can still produce comparable results with restricted use of relaparotomy.