Less guessing, more evidence in identifying patients least fit for cytoreductive surgery in advanced ovarian cancer: A triage algorithm to individualize surgical management

Objective: We previously reported an algorithm that identifies women at high risk of postoperative morbidity & mortality (M/M) as a tool to triage between neoadjuvant chemotherapy and primary surgery for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). We sought to independently validate its performance using multicenter data. Methods: Women who underwent surgery for stage IIIC/IV EOC between 1/1/2014 and 12/31/2017 were identified from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database and classified as “high risk” or “triage appropriate” using our algorithm. Outcomes were compared between triage appropriate and high-risk women using the chi-square test. Results: 1777 women met inclusion criteria; the mean age was 62.6 years and 81.9% had stage IIIC disease. Nationally, the surgical complexity scores were low (69.8% low, 25.2% intermediate and 5.0% high). “High risk” women had 2-fold higher rate of severe 30-day complication or death (6.2% vs 3.5%; p = 0.01), a 3-fold higher rate of 30-day mortality (1.4% vs 0.5%; p = 0.08), and a higher risk of death following a severe complication (11.1% vs. 0%, p = 0.11). A sensitivity analysis excluding women with unknown albumin who didn't meet other high risk criteria showed similar results: severe 30-day complications or death (6.2% vs 3.5%; p = 0.02) and 30-day mortality (1.4% vs 0.3%; p = 0.04) for “high risk” vs “triage appropriate” women. Conclusions: Primary cytoreductive surgery to minimal residual disease remains the goal for EOC. We verify that our algorithm can identify women at risk of M/M using national multicenter data, despite a low complexity surgical setting and using 30-day mortality (vs. 90-day). Objective surgical risk assessment for ovarian cancer should be standard of care and can be incorporated into practice using the Mayo triage algorithm.