Complete lymph node dissection: is it essential for the treatment of borderline epithelial ovarian tumors?

The present study aims to compare the clinical and reproductive outcomes of women who have undergone lymph node dissection with those who have not and to discuss the indications for retroperitoneal evaluation in the treatment of borderline ovarian tumors. The present study investigated 123 women who were finally diagnosed with borderline epithelial ovarian tumors at the study center between January 1999 and January 2009. A total of 68 patients (55.3%) were found to have a complete surgical staging procedure. The patients who underwent complete lymph node dissection were significantly younger than those who did not have lymphadenectomy. Thus, the ratio of postmenopausal women was significantly higher among those in whom retroperitoneal evaluation was performed. As expected, the intraoperative blood loss was significantly more and the hospital stay was significantly longer in patients who underwent complete lymph node dissection. Also, the non-serous borderline ovarian tumors were significantly more frequent in the latter patient group. However, overall and disease-free survival spans were found to be statistically similar for both study groups as well as the recurrence rate. Retroperitoneal evaluation can be spared in every woman with borderline ovarian tumor unless she is to undergo complete surgical staging procedure because of high recurrence risk, advanced stage disease or personal choice.