Five-Year Ovarian Cancer Survival Rate Pegged at 44%

OB/GYN News, July 15, 2001 by Timothy F. Kirn

SAN FRANCISCO -- The survival rate for epithelial ovarian cancer has risen dramatically over the past decade, and 5-year survival may now be about 44%, according to a Swedish population study.

The study found that 2-year survival for ovarian cancer increased an average of 1.9% per year from 1990 to 1998, to 68%, Dr. Thomas Hogberg said at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Hogberg and his associates looked at all epithelial ovarian cancer cases diagnosed in Sweden since 1960 and followed up on patients' survival or death using a population registry. Five-year survival was found to have risen from 39% for those patients diagnosed in 1990 to 44% for those patients diagnosed in 1995.

The increase of 1.9% per year in 2-year survival during the 1990s compares with an increase in survival of only 0.6% per year between 1970 and 1989, Dr. Hogberg of University Hospital in Linkoping, Sweden, said in a poster presentation.

The main reasons for the increased survival are improvements in cytoreductive surgery in the 1980s and the use of the taxanes (paclitaxel and docetaxel) in the 1990s.

The current standard of care for ovarian cancer, after cytoreduction surgery, is chemotherapy with six cycles of either cisplatin or carboplatin and paclitaxel for any cancer stage Il or above. Some experts use single-agent carboplatin therapy, but this is considered controversial.

The use of gemcitabine, topotecan, and/or liposomal doxorubicin in salvage treatment has probably contributed to better survival as well, Dr. Hogberg said in an interview.