"Lifelong follow-up is critically important for ovarian cancer patients."
(
Opinion -
and clinical/research reporting)
abstract
PURPOSE:
To
present a case of very late (more than 20 years) recurrence of
epithelial ovarian carcinoma and to review the pertinent literature. We
encountered a 50-year-old patient who, at the age of 22, underwent
cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III serous
ovarian carcinoma. She recurred after 28 years and underwent secondary
surgery and chemotherapy.
METHOD:
A
PubMed search of the English literature containing the following key
words: ovarian cancer, late recurrence, late relapse, late metastasis
was performed.
RESULTS:
Only
five cases (including the present one) with recurrence after more than
20 years are so far on record. Of these, four patients were 33 years old
or younger and had advanced stage at diagnosis. Time to recurrence
ranged from 21 to 28 years. All patients had serous carcinoma and three
had recurrence in lymph nodes.
CONCLUSIONS:
Very
late recurrence is an extremely rare event and may result from either
regrowth of dormant tumor cells or from development of a new cancer.
Lifelong follow-up is critically important for ovarian cancer patients.
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