Prognostic importance of histologic grading in ovarian carcinoma.

Our data on ovarian epithelial carcinoma show that within a given stage, regardless of the histologic cell type, the increasingly higher grades have an increasingly poorer prognosis. This suggests that more intensive therapy be considered for all patients with ovarian epithelial carcinomas than is currently undertaken. Specifically, this means that, in addition to the standard modalities, chemotherapy should be considered for all tumors beyond grade 1, stage 1a.