Quality of life from cytoreductive surgery in advanced ovarian cancer: Investigating the association between disease burden and surgical complexity in the international, prospective, SOCQER-2 cohort study

Objective

To investigate quality of life (QoL) and association with surgical complexity and disease burden after surgical resection for advanced ovarian cancer in centres with variation in surgical approach.

Design

Prospective multicentre observational study.

Setting

Gynaecological cancer surgery centres in the UK, Kolkata, India, and Melbourne, Australia.

Sample

Patients undergoing surgical resection (with low, intermediate or high surgical complexity score, SCS) for late-stage ovarian cancer.

Main Outcome Measures

Primary: change in global score on the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) core quality-of-life questionnaire (QLQ-C30). Secondary: EORTC ovarian cancer module (OV28), progression-free survival.

Results

Patients’ preoperative disease burden and SCS varied between centres, confirming differences in surgical ethos. QoL response rates were 90% up to 18 months. Mean change from the pre-surgical baseline in the EORTC QLQ-C30 was 3.4 (SD 1.8, n = 88) in the low, 4.0 (SD 2.1, n = 55) in the intermediate and 4.3 (SD 2.1, n = 52) in the high-SCS group after 6 weeks (p = 0.048), and 4.3 (SD 2.1, n = 51), 5.1 (SD 2.2, n = 41) and 5.1 (SD 2.2, n = 35), respectively, after 12 months (p = 0.133). In a repeated-measures model, there were no clinically or statistically meaningful differences in EORTC QLQ-C30 global scores between the three SCS groups (p = 0.840), but there was a small statistically significant improvement in all groups over time (p < 0.001). The high-SCS group experienced small to moderate decreases in physical (p = 0.004), role (p = 0.016) and emotional (p = 0.001) function at 6 weeks post-surgery, which resolved by 6–12 months.

Conclusions

The global QoL of patients undergoing low-, intermediate- and high-SCS surgery improved at 12 months after surgery and was no worse in patients undergoing extensive surgery.

Tweetable Abstract

Compared with surgery of lower complexity, extensive surgery does not result in poorer quality of life in patients with advanced ovarian cancer.