Are there candidates for high-dose chemotherapy in ovarian carcinoma? (pdf file)

Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2012, 31:87 doi:10.1186/1756-9966-31-87

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"Results
One hundred and three AOC patients treated with conventional chemotherapy alone (CCA) were compared to 60 patients receiving HDC plus hematopoietic stem cell support. After a median follow-up of 47.5 months there was no overall survival (OS) advantage for the HDC
group in the whole population (p=0.29). Nevertheless, HDC was associated to a better outcome in young patients (≤50 years), both in term of progression-free survival (p=0.02, log-rank test) and OS (p=0.05, log-rank test). Median OS was 54.6 and 36 months in the
HDC and CCA groups, respectively.

Conclusions
Although randomized trials failed to demonstrate any benefit for HDC in AOC patients, this study suggests that young patients may derive a substantial advantage from receiving it after the standard treatment. Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm this gain and to
search for the biological processes associated with this improvement."