Surgery of borderline tumors of the ovary: retrospective comparison of short-term outcome after laparoscopy or laparotomy

Background. Laparoscopic management of borderline ovarian tumors is controversial. Objective. To retrospectively compare outcome after surgery by laparoscopy or laparotomy for borderline tumors. Methods. Ovarian tumors from all women operated at Ulleval University Hospital during a five-year period were re-evaluated histologically. Patients with borderline FIGO (International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics) stage I tumors were retrospectively compared regarding surgery outcome following laparoscopy or laparotomy. Results. Histological re-evaluation revealed only 3 misclassifications in 608 patients. Borderline tumors represented 36% of epithelial ovarian malignancies. The 107 borderline stage I included 52 serous, 53 mucinous, and 2 endometrioid tumors. Thirty-eight patients were operated on primarily by laparoscopy and 69 by laparotomy (including 14 women starting with laparoscopy). In the laparoscopy group, more women were premenopausal (63% versus 35%, p = 0.01) and median tumor diameter was smaller (8.6 versus 16.4 cm, p < 0.001) as compared to the laparotomy group. When tumor diameter exceeded 10 cm, intraoperative tumor rupture was significantly more frequent during laparoscopy than during laparotomy (p = 0.01). Less postoperative complications were seen after laparoscopic operations (p = 0.034), but laparoscopic surgeries were less extensive, without hysterectomy, as compared to laparotomy. During the 14-78 months follow-up time, no relapse occurred in either group. After fertility-sparing surgery, there was no statistical significant difference regarding successful pregnancies between the two groups. Conclusions. Laparoscopic treatment of borderline ovarian tumors is feasible if tumor is of moderate size (diameter below 10 cm), gives fewer complications, and shorter hospital stay. Long-term follow-up of larger materials is needed to determine the ultimate recurrence risk as well as fertility rates.