Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer.

Eighty-eight patients out of 396 were treated for advanced ovarian cancer first by some cycles of chemotherapy--neoadjuvant chemotherapy-- and after by surgery. An improvement in the quality of surgery and disease-free period was observed while survival rate did not improve, compared with the patients treated by surgery before chemotherapy. It should be stressed that neoadjuvant chemotherapy was applied only in very advanced PS Figo stages. The results are the same in the three studied decades: even in the last one, when cases were selected following new protocols. In our case series all patients after chemotherapy underwent surgery and not only those with partial or complete response to chemotherapy.