Early stage epithelial ovarian cancer metastasis through peritoneal fluid circulation

• Published in: Journal of ovarian research Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 44
• Main Authors: Purbadi, Sigit, Anggraeni, Tricia Dewi, Vitria, Angelina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 16.03.2021; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Abdomen; Ascites; Biopsy; Cancer; Cellular biology; Cytology; Epithelial ovarian cancer; Histopathology; Hospitals; Medical records; Metastases; Metastasis; Oncology, Experimental; Ovarian cancer; Patients; Peritoneal fluid; Peritoneum; Proportion of spreading; Surgical staging; Tumors; Proportion of spreading; Epithelial ovarian cancer; Surgical staging
• ISSN: 1757-2215; 1757-2215
• DOI: 10.1186/s13048-021-00795-z

Although epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) spreads through peritoneal circulation, all patients with clinical early-stage ovarian cancer (OC) benefit from routine surgical staging is still unclear. This cross-sectional study used data from medical records of patients with clinical early-stage EOC who received complete surgical staging from 2006 to 2016 at our hospital. We excluded patients with non-epithelial OC or with stage IV disease. Among 50 patients with clinical early-stage EOC who underwent surgical staging, biopsies showed EOC cells in peritoneal fluid for 12 patients (24%), in peritoneal tissue for ten patients (20%), and omental tissue for eight patients (16%). Of those 50 patients, 40 patients had undergone peritoneal biopsies, and the other five patients also had omental biopsies. The results showed that only one (2.5%) from 40 patients with peritoneal biopsy and three (6.7%) from 45 patients with omental biopsy had no visible nodules. From cytology examination, 3 out of 26 patients (11.5%) showed positive cytology from peritoneal washing. Routine peritoneal biopsies do not seem advantageous for patients with clinical early-stage EOC as negative visible nodules with positive biopsy results were only 1 in 40 cases. However, further study with a larger cohort is needed to obtain more information on peritoneal fluid metastasis patterns.