Impact of Lymph Node Sampling in Stage II and III Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Patients with Clinically Negative Lymph Nodes.

The main surgical treatment of stage II and III epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is complete cytoreduction, while the main role of lymph node sampling is to exclude microscopic stage III disease in an apparent stage I EOC. This study aims to evaluate the impact of lymph node sampling in stage II and III EOC patients with clinically negative lymph nodes. This is a retrospective cohort study including 51 stage II and III EOC patients treated and followed up between 2012 and 2016. They were treated by complete cytoreduction. Sixteen cases had lymph node sampling, while it was not done in 35 cases. The study was performed at National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Cairo University. There was no statistically significant difference regarding overall survival (P value 0.649) or disease-free survival (P value 0.372) between the group of patients who had lymph node sampling and the other group of patients who had no lymph node sampling. Lymph node ratio (LNR) was not associated with a statistically significant impact regarding overall survival or disease-free survival. There is no impact of lymph node sampling on stage II and III EOC patients with clinically negative lymph nodes. © Indian Association of Surgical Oncology 2019.