Preoperative D-dimer plasma assay is not a predictor of clinical outcome for patients with advanced ovarian cancer.

D-dimer (DD) plasma levels are significantly higher in patients with ovarian cancer than in those with benign ovarian masses. The aim of this paper is to assess whether preoperative DD plasma assay has a prognostic relevance for 35 patients with advanced ovarian cancer receiving platinum-based chemotherapy. Preoperative DD levels ranged from 162 to 3720 ng/ml. The 25, 50, and 75% quartiles of DD levels were 1600, 1894, and 2069 ng/ml, respectively. Preoperative DD levels correlated neither with the common clinicopathological prognostic variables nor with the disease status at the end of first-line chemotherapy. Survival was related to residual disease after initial surgery (> or =2 cm vs <2 cm, P = 0.003), but not to preoperative DD levels. In conclusion, the present data seem to show that preoperative DD plasma assay is not a predictor of clinical outcome for patients with advanced ovarian cancer.