Recurrence of borderline ovarian tumors: clinical and pathological risk factors

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the impact of several clinic pathologic factors on the rate of recurrence of borderline ovarian tumors (BOT). Method: Patients, who were diagnosed in our clinic between October 1996 and April 2016 with a final diagnosis of BOT, were retrospectively investigated. Only patients with a primary diagnosis of BOT were included. A total of 147 patients were diagnosed with BOT and underwent surgical treatment. The pathological reports, medical records and operation notes of the included patients were obtained from the gynecological oncology electronic database system. Results: While 51.7% of all our patients had BOTs of serous histology, 34.6% had mucinous BOTs and 13.6% had seromucinous BOTs, and their bilaterality was 11.8%, 2% and 5%, respectively. After treatment, the clinical conditions of 96 patients could be followed and recurrence was observed in six (6.3%) of them. The median follow-up time was 66 months (range: 12–266 months). The median time to recurrence was 46 months (range: 14–100 months). For non-recurrence and recurrence cases, the median age was 42.0 years (range: 17–86) years and 29.0 years (range: 18–32 years), respectively a statistically significant difference (p = 0.005). Thirteen percent of the patients who underwent conservative surgery had recurrence, whereas no recurrence was observed in patients without conservative surgery (p = 0.009). While no recurrence was observed in patients who were surgically staged as stage 1, recurrences developed in cases with stage 2 and 3 disease (p = 0.040). In this cohort histologic type, surgical staging, presence of implants, size of the tumor, presence of micropapillary variants, and lymphadenectomy were not associated with recurrence. Conclusion: We found the recurrence of BOT is associated with younger age at diagnosis and conservative surgery. Although we found no statistically significant association of BOT recurrences with surgical staging, among those who were surgically stage recurrences only occured in patients with stage 2 or 3 disease.