A multicentric trial (Olympia-MITO 13) on the accuracy of laparoscopy to assess peritoneal spread in ovarian cancer

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to prospectively evaluate the accuracy of laparoscopy performed in satellite centers (SCs) to describe intraabdominal diffusion of advanced ovarian cancer (AOC). STUDY DESIGN: Patients with a clinical/radiological suspicion of AOC were included in the protocol. SCs were selected among those surgeons, spending a short intensive training period at the coordinator center (CC) to learn the application of staging laparoscopy (S-LPS) in AOC. All women underwent S-LPS at the SCs, and the surgical procedure was recorded and blindly reviewed at the CC. Calculating specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and the accuracy for each parameter with respect to the CC assessed the diagnostic performance of S-LPS. The Cohen's kappa was used to test the interobserver agreement of each parameter. RESULTS: One hundred sixty-eight cases were considered eligible for the study. A per-protocol analysis was performed on 120 cases. The worst laparoscopic assessable feature was mesenteric retraction, whereas the remaining variables ranged from 99.2% (peritoneal carcinomatosis) to 90% (bowel infiltration). All but 1 SC (SC number 4) reached an accuracy rate of 80% or greater for both single parameters and overall score. The Cohen's kappa and the P value for overall predicitive index value were 0.685 and .01, respectively, but improved to 0.773 and .388 after removing the SC number 4 from the analysis. CONCLUSION: S-LPS allows an accurate and reliable assessment of intraperitoneal diffusion of disease in AOC patients in trained gynecological oncology centers.