Efficacy Study of Additional Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy to Treat Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies worldwide. The recommended treatment includes primary surgery for diagnosis, staging, and cytoreduction, followed by chemotherapy. Epithelial ovarian cancer is more sensitive to cytotoxic drugs than other solid tumors, most patients with advanced ovarian cancer are recommended treatment with postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. The recommended initial chemotherapy is generally platinum and taxane combination given by intravenous infusion every 3 weeks for 6 courses. This treatment resulted in complete remission in about 50% of ovarian cancer patients and pathologic complete response in 25\~30% of patients. However most patients with advanced ovarian cancer suffered recurrences after primary treatment, median progression free survival is 15.5-22months, and median overall survival is about 31-44months. As residual ovarian cancer after surgery and initial recurrences are primarily confined to the abdomen, intraperitoneal administration of chemotherapy was proposed several decades ago. In 2006, Armstrong, et al., reported improvement of overall survival in ovarian cancer patient with optimal surgical debulking followed intraperitoneal paclitaxel + cisplatin chemotherapy. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the United States recommended to consider intraperitoneal chemotherapy in optimally debulking patients. In Korea, however, there are few studies about postoperative adjuvant intraperitoneal chemotherapy in optimally debulked (residual mass \<1cm) advanced ovarian cancer patients. Therefore the investigators tend to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of postoperative adjuvant intraperitoneal chemotherapy. (standard intravenous paclitaxel+carboplatin plus intraperitoneal paclitaxel chemotherapy)